Review: Hush by Stacey R. Campbell

Hush

Author: Stacey R. Campbell
Series: Lakeview #1
Publisher: Green Darner Press
Genre: YA Contemporary
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 23, 2014
Source: Received eARC from publisher via NetGalley
Rating: 2 Stars
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***I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way changed my opinion of the book. The review below is my open and honest opinion.*** 

Synopsis from Goodreads:

For small-town girl Blakely Henry, any hope of finding her biological parents died when she stopped believing in fairy tales and Disney princesses. That is, until she spots her boarding school’s new British exchange student, Max Ryder, staring at her. Why would a boy who looks like he stepped out of the pages of a magazine be looking at her? Because Max knows something Blakely doesn’t.

Following the tragic demise of one of Europe’s most beloved royal families, Max has stumbled upon information he thinks may lead to a lost royal heir, and now he is on a quest halfway around the world to see if he’s right.

 
Sworn to secrecy by his university professor and the headmaster of Lakeview Academy, Max is admitted into an exchange program with the sole purpose of finding out the truth. But will his personal feelings for Blakely get in the way?

When a stolen email surfaces, Blakely and her friends’ lives are threatened, and Max starts to question what he is really after.

From the exclusive rolling lawns of Canada’s most prestigious boarding school to the University of Saint Andrews’ hallowed grounds, Blakely’s quiet, unassuming life is turned upside down. Is she really who she thinks she is? Can she survive long enough to help Max unearth the truth?

My Review:

I love The Princess Diaries. I think it’s because secretly I think I’m a princess. (No seriously, I am…) So I love reading about this life-changing event happening to other girls. So when I read the synopsis for this I was pretty excited. Too bad it was extremely disappointing.

There are two words that can sum up all of this book’s problems: rushed and cliché. I wanted to like this. I wanted it to be a great story. But it just wasn’t. It’s really short, less than 300 pages. And you could feel it. This book needed to be at least 100 pages longer. Because of the short length, the plot ended up feeling extremely simple and predictable. There were no twists; nothing surprised me. For most of the book I ended up skimming because I just didn’t care about what was happening. I wanted more politics, more bad guys, more anything, but it just wasn’t there.

The characters were all pretty bland and completely stereotypical. The main character, Blakely has sworn off guys her senior year because she has been hurt too much the previous years. Enough teenage angst for you? But of course, this doesn’t last long and she is falling head over heels for the new guy in the first five seconds she sees him. I couldn’t get a solid grasp on Blakely’s personality and I never felt like I got to know her. And the same goes for the other characters. Undeveloped and un-relatable. I think the biggest reason this happened was because the book was written in third person omniscient. I’ve talked about this before, but I hate this perspective. It takes a skilled author to do this successfully and it just didn’t work in this book. There was too much head-hopping and not enough getting to know each character.

The romance. This was quite possibly the worst case of insta-love I have ever read. To be fair, technically, they had known each other for weeks before they started dating, but because the entire book was so rushed, those weeks were just kind of skipped over. We saw none of the relationship building and therefore, it felt like insta-love. There were also a lot of strange and, in my opinion, inappropriate interactions between Max and Blakely. At one point, before they are even dating, before they have even kissed, Max comes up behind Blakely and kisses the back of her neck. Um, weird. Get away. He has no right to do that! They’re not together! But of course Blakely just basically swoons over it. Gross.

When the MC finally does find out about her heritage, she accepts it way too easily. She was just like “Okay, that’s cool. Let’s move across the world now so I can rule my kingdom.” Once she gets there, she just happens to have done well in her diplomacy and government classes in school (which had never been mentioned prior). As much as I joke about wanting to be a princess, there’s no way I would ever actually want to be. Running an entire country?? I can barely run my own life. Blakely fell into this new role way too easily for a seventeen year old.

This book was a pretty big letdown and I would avoid it if I were you. I think it had a lot of potential to be great. The royal family was world celebrities which I liked and thought was realistic. And the whole classic tale of a girl who doesn’t know her heritage discovering she’s a princess. The potential was there, but it left me feeling rushed and unsatisfied. Happy reading all!

Have you read this book? Were you as disappointed as I was? Are there any other Princess Diaries type books that I should read?