READING: Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick
Publication date: October 19th, 2010
Published by: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Source: Bought
Rating: 3/5

Nora should have known her life was far from perfect. Despite starting a relationship with her guardian angel, Patch (who, title aside, can be described as anything but angelic), and surviving an attempt on her life, things are not looking up. Patch is starting to pull away, and Nora can't figure out if it's for her best interest or if his interest has shifted to her arch-enemy Marcie Millar. Not to mention that Nora is haunted by images of her father and she becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened to him that night he left for Portland and never came home.

The farther Nora delves into the mystery of her father's death, the more she comes to question if her Nephilim blood line has something to do with it as well as why she seems to be in danger more than the average girl. Since Patch isn't answering her questions and seems to be standing in her way, she has to start finding the answers on her own. Relying too heavily on the fact that she has a guardian angel puts Nora at risk again and again. But can she really count on Patch, or is he hiding secrets darker than she can even imagine?

Let me start by saying that I really enjoyed reading Hush,Hush.I didn't love it, but it was definitely a fun, addictive read.So, I was really looking forward for its sequel.Unfortunately though,Crescendo didn't live up to my expectations.
I had no problem with the writing.It was the same as in HH, simple, fast-paced, a bit less sensual than HH, but I didn't mind that.Well, at least as long as the characters and the story were decent enough.Hm, not so much, it turned out.
I was OK with Nora in HH.Granted,she was gullible and a bit of a doormat, but she was likeable enough.I mean, she was a teenage girl, in love with a bad boy.Okay, nothing wrong or surprising about that.In Crescendo however, she took "annoying" and "obnoxious" to whole new level!She was extremely jealous and possessive of Patch even when she had no reason and no right to be.She knew that something was wrong and that Patch had a reason for acting this way(if she didn't, add "totally ignorant" to the mix) and she was still bitching about Patch's behaviour towards her,all the while following him around acting like a weird stalker and still allowing herself to be bossed around by him,even though she had all these negative feelings towards him.I didn't like her lack of self-respect at all, and her whole attitude in the book put me off.I liked how Patch handled Nora's uncalled for hysterics at the beginning and to be honest, that came as a complete surprise to me because I didn't like him very much in HH.Well, it didn't last long.After a 100 pages or so, Patch was his old arrogant, egotistical self again.Still, he was not as bad as Nora was.Scott.New character.Didn't see the point in Scott's existence at all.He didn't add anything interesting to the story.Oh, except for driving Nora around from party to party.Yes, he was pretty good at that.
As far as the story is concerned, it was not bad per se, but it was surely confusing and pretty much a tangled-up mess, if you ask me.The whole story about Nephilim, fallen angels, archangels and their lineage as cool as it may sound, and it truly does, was unjustifiably  perplexed. I'd rather Fitzpatrick reminded us, without being repetitive, a little bit about what happened in HH, the story behind fallen angels, Nephilim and blood lines.It would be much easier to get into the story if she had given us a little bit more info on that, instead of me going "OK, he is the good guy.He is the bad guy.I don't care about the rest".
Make no mistake: you will definitely get hooked right from the start,if you choose to read Crescendo,and you will probably come to like it.However, for me it didn't work as well as HH and when all's said and done, I expected a lot more from it.