Book Synopsis: A teenage misfit named Hawthorn Creely inserts herself in the investigation of missing person Lizzie Lovett, who disappeared mysteriously while camping with her boyfriend. Hawthorn doesn't mean to interfere, but she has a pretty crazy theory about what happened to Lizzie. In order to prove it, she decides to immerse herself in Lizzie's life. That includes taking her job... and her boyfriend. It's a huge risk — but it's just what Hawthorn needs to find her own place in the world.
My Review: 2/5 stars. This is the lowest I’ve ever rated a book, but I was really disappointed with this. It took me almost two months to get through, and it’s not even that long, just because I wasn’t enjoying it all. I don’t really read mystery, but the premise sounded kind of interesting. Turns out, it’s not nearly as good as the premise makes it out to be. I’m the type of person who can’t DNF a book. Once I start, I’m committed, but I really considered stopping in the middle multiple times, so that says a lot.
I could never rate a book 1 star. I know that, as a writer myself, If I ever got really negative reviews I would be sad and less motivated. However, with this book, most of the time I was just reading the words to read and get through it, but not actually enjoying it. There are a lot of things wrong with this book, so brace yourself for a really rant-y review.
First, the main character. Hawthorn was so unlikable. She was too much of an "I'm not like other girls because I'm weird and like werewolves" type of character. In a lot of novels, I can relate to the main character, or at least sympathize with them, but I felt no connection to the main character at all, I was just annoyed with her all the time. She wasn't very smart and was acting super immature throughout the whole book, she was also pretty mean to those around her. Don't think I'm complaining about her being flawed and therefore well-written - trust me, I'm all for flawed but likable characters - but Hawthorn wasn't likeable. I also thought she was written like we were supposed to feel bad for her life, but I just thought it was pitiful and too much of "My life is terrible because I'm lonely and have no friends and everyone bullies me because I'm different, feel bad for me."
Hawthorn spent the whole book thinking that Lizzie Lovett, the girl who had gone missing, was a werewolf, it just made me facepalm. She never gave up on this ridiculous theory and tried to convince everyone she was right and it was just dumb. I didn't like the werewolf element in a non-fantasy setting and was hoping the whole time that she was wrong.
On a related note, the book identified itself as a mystery, but there was really not much mystery at all. I thought it was going to be an edge-of-my-seat type of book where you're constantly being given new clues and you wanted to figure it out before the main character, but it wasn't. All it really was was Hawthorn having one tiny piece of information, reading into it WAY too much, and trying to relate it to her werewolf theory somehow.
What I probably hated the most was the romance, if you can even call it that. So Hawthorn starts hanging out with Lizzie boyfriend, Lorenzo, at first just to help her with the mystery, but then realizes she might have feelings for him. It's weird and awful in so many ways. First of all, Lorenzo is a creep who people suspect of murdering Lizzie, but Hawthorn doesn't think so. Secondly, he's almost ten years older than her, which is messed up. They don't have any chemistry whatsoever and their "relationship" was so toxic.
Lastly, the ending. The ending was only slightly less disappointing. It turned out, Lizzie Lovett had committed suicide. Somehow no one had managed to find her body in the woods for months, even though they searched there. I thought it was so strange that Hawthorn had this huge reaction to her death, (hiding away in her room, refusing to eat and all that) or why she was even so obsessed with Lizzie in the first place, when she had only spoken to her for like a minute three or four years ago. In the last couple of chapters, Hawthorn was obsessed with knowing why Lizzie killed herself when she was super popular. The only thing I somewhat liked about the ending was the message it was trying to give about how "even seemingly happy, super popular and well-loved people can be hurting inside".
This book is not good for a younger audience. The ending is about suicide, there's a lot of bad language, - including some F-bombs, which I hated - and there's this one scene that made me really uncomfortable to read and was so relieved when it was over. There was about a page or so where Hawthorn talked about losing her virginity. It wasn't described in detail or anything, but it still made me really uncomfortable. What made it worse was that Lorenzo was 25 and Hawthorn was 17! A minor! That's messed up on so many levels, Lorenzo should've been arrested or something. It was so weird and gross.
When it comes to the tiny things I did like were some of the really minor characters. I liked Hawthorn's friendship with this girl she worked with at a diner, and I liked Connor, a friend of Hawthorn's brother who came over a lot. I honestly thought that Hawthorn and Connor would've made a much better couple, especially since he was only 19 and was so nice and supportive to Hawthorn.
In conclusion, this was not very enjoyable to read and I wouldn't recommend it.
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