Friday, 12 September 2014

Review: Dangerous Boys by Abigail Haas.

Book: Dangerous Boys

Author: Abigail Haas

Pages: 336

Read On: My Kindle

How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 hours



General Thoughts: Last year, I read Dangerous Girls and absolutely loved it. Loved it. Read it in one sitting and adored it. It was deliciously twisted and dark and I loved that it drew upon some recent high-profile cases and made me think of how media makes murderers out of people even before the courts decide one way or another. 

When I heard about this book I wanted to read it immediately and got it on my Kindle to get my reading on!!! 

Things I Liked:

1. The premise of the book, obviously. The idea that there is this girl who can't wait to get out of her small town and get started on her real life. How she meets a boy and how things get complicated. 

2. I enjoyed the style of storytelling. The book moves between the present time and to a few months ago when Chloe first meets Ethan. You get to learn more about both these characters and see how things evolved gradually and also how Chloe's life was slowly not going according to her plan.. basically, how it was falling apart. 

3. Chloe was an interesting character. I liked how the author was very subtle in showing her evolution... devolution from the girl we first see at the beginning of summer and the girl we get to see at the end of the events of the book. 

4. The pace was great. You don't really get bored or feel that there were superfluous scenes in there that didn't belong. Always a great thing when you are reading a thriller. 

Things I Didn't Like:

1. There were a few character-related things that happened way too suddenly. I don't want to get into  that because they will spoil the book completely. While I liked how subtle Chloe's character development was but I wonder if it was too subtle? Perhaps that is why the events towards the end seemed very rushed? Anyway, the bottomline is that the end was rushed and the character-related aspects that led to those events seemed a bit out of the blue. 

2. Oliver was so predictable. There was no subtlety whatsoever in who/what Oliver is and what his entry into the story would herald. Not very fun to read about at all. 

3. The absolute last few paragraphs of the book (the ending, basically) was ridiculous and so hard to believe! The 'bargaining chip' that a character uses to do something is super-lame and, like I said, utterly ridiculous! 

Rating: 2.5/5

This book starts off well, builds up to what seems like a great mystery and then everything seems sudden, weird and rushed. Read it, but, perhaps don't expect a world-class mystery. Dangerous Girls (click HERE for the review) is a better book. 

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