I got this book
as a birthday present from a friend. I had every intention of buying it for
myself, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. That being said, I am a terrible
procrastinator. I didn’t start reading it until probably about a month later. I
was drawn in by the first line alone. I barely set it down even to sleep.
Reading it was like nothing else I had read before without being too
pretentious. It was humorous and utterly enthralling.
Carey is
absolutely wonderful. Well, not really; he’s a bit of a loser and he’s
completely incompetent. He sort of reminds me of these traveling crust kids I
knew in my hometown that rolled into town every summer. Homeless, a little
smelly, and always down to party. I supposed that leaves me a little biased
toward him. I loved watching him grow into the hero he’s forced into becoming.
Literally forced, kicking and screaming. While being reckless and
irresponsible, he’s caring and protective of his group. He’s sexy and
completely disgusting, and he makes for a fantastic main character.
As a no nonsense
sort of woman, I expected to relate to Kaitlyn. I was disappointed with her
inconsistencies. The only draw to her character is that she’s a hardcore
stuntwoman. She drives a bike, has fighting experience, and man, can she take a
beating. She’s also timid and lets herself get walked on. She gets roped into
pulling extra shifts at a job she hates, and is also terrible at, leaving me
wondering why she hasn’t been fired. Her “best friend” drags her out to parties
and forces her onto strangers. While this is normal in girl-world, the extent
that her friend takes it to leaves me wondering how they are best friends to
begin with. Maybe there’s more to their relationship, but it doesn’t really
come out. She’s paranoid and has some sort of social anxiety. How the hell does
she wind up with Carey? I like them as partners, but it isn’t really
believable.
As much as I didn’t
like Kaitlyn, I understand how necessary she was to the overall story. I
enjoyed how the timelines twisted together as well as the parallels they
created. Without spoiling too much, I loved the reveal for the first chapter.
It felt like it should have been obvious, but I was still blind-sighted.
Gloriously so.
There were points
in the book where I was a little bit drunk while reading. I randomly wrote out
a quote that I found compelling and super meaningful. I have no idea why now,
it wasn’t that amazing given the context. I guess things strike me differently
when I’m wasted.
“I do not think you can do that,” Gus said,
and his voice was still water. Deep and flat and unfathomable. “It will be
interesting to watch you try.”
Out of all the
delightful quips, the bits that made me laugh out loud, out of all the clever
wit and action, that is the passage I wrote down. In hindsight, that sort of
sums up the book in its entirety. My drunken self may be brilliant.
So, here I am
trying to wrap up my thoughts on the book and I realize I haven’t even
mentioned the villains. The Angels are confusing for the majority of the book,
but you know there’s nothing good coming from them. I suppose the Tar Men are a
little scary, but mostly they’re throwaway action and help the characters
develop and make it painfully obvious that something is going on. The Empty
Ones are the stuff of nightmares. They’re believable and nearly impossible to
spot. Their purpose almost makes me never want to meet any of my celebrity
crushes. Of course, the fangirl in me says that being Unnoticeable wouldn’t be
too horrible. This is assuming I wouldn’t “wake up” in the midst of the Empty
Ones’ plans for me.
All in all, I
wait with fierce anticipation for the rest of the series.
