Ariel and I had lunch yesterday (it’s like we’re real friends!) and talked about how I hadn’t done the reading for my Hush, Hush post this week yet. We then agreed that if there’s any one nice thing about Hush, Hush, at least it reads very quickly.
Chapter Twenty
Now, if you’re a regular reader, you know that up until this point, the narrative pacing in this novel has been terrible. Last week we read chapter nineteen and finally were introduced to the concept of fallen angels, which is what this series, a supernatural young adult romance, is supposedly about. Just so we’re clear, this is a full two hundred fifty pages before we finally see the words “fallen angel” show up in the novel. Just so we’re super clear, this is almost two thirds of the whole novel.
So after all of that beating around the bush, we can finally get down to business and talk about this fallen angel shit, right? NOPE. Time to read another entire chapter that never mentions fallen angels once.
Drunk Elliot shows up at Nora’s house late at night to condescendingly ask her to go camping with him, Jules, and Vee.
He wore jeans, a vintage plaid shirt rolled to the elbows, sunglasses, and a Red Sox cap. On the outside, he looked all-American. But I knew better
Apparently he’s also Canadian now, I guess.
“What’s it look like I’m doing? I want to talk. Don’t I get to come in?”
“My mom’s asleep. I don’t want to wake her.”
“I’ve never met your mom.” Something about the way he said it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand tall.
Also apparently he wants to sleep with Nora’s mom now. God, that would make this novel so much more interesting. But, alas, he’s still hitting increasingly creeptastically on Nora, even though he openly admits that he knows she doesn’t like him, but that’s no deterrent to him!
“You’re coming camping whether you want to or not.”
Her mom shows up and there is disappointingly little sexual tension between her and Elliot, so guess that ship has sailed. Then Vee calls and is the shittiest friend ever, because during the conversation, Nora says this:
- “Elliot showed up at my house fifteen minutes ago, drunk.”
- “He physically assaulted me.”
To which Vee responds “promise you’ll go camping!”. So Nora decides to continue her investigation into the potential homicide Elliot was involved in at his old school herself by interviewing coworkers at the diner the victim used to work at, and is still the worst spy ever, as she:
- Writes a list of interview questions, and then throws them out in the trash can outside the diner, where literally anyone can find them, like, I dunno, the mysterious figure that’s stalking her and violently attacking people around her?
- She walks into the diner, is welcomed to Blind Joe’s diner, and immediately asks why that name sounds so familiar. I dunno, Nora, maybe because you literally just walked into Blind Joe’s diner?
- The waitress mentions that they were in the news for a week straight a month ago, and Nora responds with “Now I remember. There was a murder, right? Didn’t the girl work here?”
- Explains her weird behavior with “Sorry, I just can’t stop thinking about the murder.”
- The waitress finally gives in and gives her a ridiculously large order to order and then she’ll “tell you what I told everybody else”. And then Nora goes for it, although she literally just learned that potentially everybody else already knows this information she is about to pay through the nose for.
We learn that Elliot dated Kjirsten and is super rich and bought her an apartment, because why the fuck not, that’s totally believable. We also learn that one time Elliot and Jules were in the diner having a heated conversation and Elliot left without finishing his sandwich.
We also don’t learn a single goddamn thing about fallen angels.
Chapter Twenty-One
Turns out Vee’s also in Portland! And at a party with Jules and Elliot! And wants Nora to come there!
On the phone with Vee, we learn that Elliot and Jules actually left Vee alone at the party and the guys there are a little grabby, but Nora should still totally come! So Nora… decides to go to the party? So she asks the bus driver how to get there, gets off the bus, walks there, and starts talking to a homeless woman who tells her she’s going the wrong way, but will totally tell her the right way if Nora gives her her coat and hat. Which Nora does.
Nora keeps walking to the party for some reason and realizes that her phone is still in her coat that she gave to a homeless woman for some reason. (Okay, she’s going to the party to try to get Vee out of there, because Nora is an infinitely better friend than Vee, although she’s about as stupid). So she goes back to try to find the homeless woman, hears a gun shot, decides to run towards the gun shot, turns the corner and finds the body of the homeless woman lying motionless on the ground.
“Are you okay?” I said
Nora calls Patch to pick her up, and he does, but his car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, so they’re forced to walk a few miles to a motel. Yes, it does sound like the novel just went from young adult fiction to actual porn.
Chapter Twenty-Two
At this point, Nora has lost her phone and Patch’s phone died just after they found out Vee was going home. Or something. It happened like a whole four pages ago and I’ll be damned if I backtrack to find out. Anyway, they get to the motel and try to call for help, but the phone lines are down! So they ask the clerk if they can borrow his cell phone, but he doesn’t have one anymore! Man, that is a lot of phones that don’t work right now! So they get a room and this dialogue actually happens:
“This is crazy,” I told Patch in an undertone.
“I’m crazy.” He was on the brink of smiling again. “About you.”
Nora takes a shower since she’s been out in the cold and the rain and whatever the fuck else for a while, and then this inner monologue actually happens:
Early on I’d felt drawn to Patch by a mysterious force field. Now I felt drawn to him by something entirely different. Something with a lot of heat involved.
Ow ow. Then Patch takes a shower!
The water stopped, and a moment later Patch strolled out wearing only his wet jeans hanging low on his waist.
Wait, this reminds me of… no…
But wait! This means that Patch isn’t wearing a shirt! Which 1) means we can finally go back to the scars on his back and the fallen angel thing, and 2) I’m very upset is a thing I just got excited about, although at least thankfully not for the author’s intended reasons. So Nora finally decides to give a shit about the fallen angel plot and… touches Patch’s scars.
It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t actually my finger moving, but me. All of me.
Which has to be the suckiest way ever to say “I teleported” ever.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Well, the fastest way I can sum up what’s happening here is that Patch’s scars where his wings used to be act like Harry Potter‘s pensieve and teleport people into the person’s memories, which has probably got to be really awkward if that ever happens during sex.
She goes into a memory of Patch playing poker at Bo’s Arcade, when suddenly Patch is called to meet with… Mrs. Greene! Whoa! It’s like that character who suddenly showed up out of nowhere really concerned about Nora’s interactions with Patch has something to do with Patch! Also, young adult fiction sensuality is hilarious.
Her blond hair was down to her waist and toothpick straight. She was wearing painted-on jeans and a pink tank top, and she was barefoot. Dressed this way, she looked even closer to my age. She was sucking on a lollipop.
Mrs. Greene (whose name is – snicker – Dabria) seductively tells Patch she knows how he can get his wings back by saving a human life and come back as a Guardian Angel, but he insists he has something better lined up, and then she makes out with him. But he sees through her lies and demands to know the truth, and she says she knows that he’s reading The Book of Enoch, but they don’t say anything about what this means aside from that it’s super secret and super dangerous. Patch wants to feign interest in this whole “save a life” plan and asks for a name, and Dabria takes a dramatic pause before saying “Nora Grey”. Patch asks who wants to kill her, so Dabria has a vision or something, dramatic pauses for half a page, and then says that the person who wants to kill her is PATCH. It’s all very dramatic.
Patch admits that his original plan was to kill Nora and that he used to date Dabria (before he “fell to the dark side”, actually what’s in the book, here, folks), and this information upsets Nora.
“I get that you’re angry-,” said Patch.
“I am ripped apart!” I shouted.
Then they kiss. But Nora isn’t happy about it and demands to touch Patch’s scars again to find out more, and he lets her, but warns he that he can’t control what she sees. I’m kind of really hoping she keeps hitting meaningless memories, like of Patch playing Call of Duty or something.
Anyway, we’re now 306 pages into the book, and we’ve finally gotten to this whole fallen angel thing. The next 85 pages are probably gonna be super exciting, I am sure!