Review: Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre
Publisher/ date: Feiwel & Friends/ August 5th, 2014
Word rating: Chaotic.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.I think, at the end, there was just too much going on in the book, and the message that it seems to be sending (whether the author intended to or not) just isn't one that I agree with.
Edie Kramer has a score to settle with the beautiful people at Blackbriar Academy. Their cruelty drove her to the brink of despair, and four months ago, she couldn't imagine being strong enough to face her senior year. But thanks to a Faustian compact with the enigmatic Kian, she has the power to make the bullies pay. She's not supposed to think about Kian once the deal is done, but devastating pain burns behind his unearthly beauty, and he's impossible to forget.
In one short summer, her entire life changes, and she sweeps through Blackbriar, prepped to take the beautiful people down from the inside. A whisper here, a look there, and suddenly... bad things are happening. It's a heady rush, seeing her tormentors get what they deserve, but things that seem too good to be true usually are, and soon, the pranks and payback turns from delicious to deadly. Edie is alone in a world teeming with secrets and fiends lurking in the shadows. In this murky morass of devil's bargains, she isn't sure who—or what--she can trust. Not even her own mind...
I thought at first that was going to be a book about making a deal with the devil and exacting revenge (I mean, at least that's what I gleaned from the summary), but the plot, while starting off pretty good, quickly turned into a downward spiral.
1) There is so, so much focus on beauty.
Okay, to be honest, if I had three wishes (called "favors" in the book, but they're pretty much the same) I'd probably want to be prettier, too. And the most appealing way to turn prettier sounds like becoming the "best version" of myself like Edie decided to be changed into.
But here's the thing: even if you somehow turn beautiful overnight, your personality will usually not do a complete 180 to go with it. Edie, however, loses almost all of her confidence issues like that and suddenly knows how to make friends and woo boys like she's been doing it all her life, when in fact, she's spent most of her school life being bullied and quiet.
2) The revenge plot went almost nowhere.
By the end of the book, there really is no solid plan for revenge (at least none that the reader is aware of) and the confrontation Edie has with her bullies is fairly anti-climatic.
Remember how she turned super-gorgeous and lost all confidence issues whatsoever? Apparently, that's enough to get you trust of the people who bullied you and tormented you and did to you the thing that eventually broke you; all without any of the said people thinking that something's off.
3) The paranormal aspect was convoluted and didn't make any sense (at least to me).
We have the mysterious organization that's making all of these things possible for Edie that's run by mythical beings or some type of gods. Then we have Edie having dreams and visions of an oracle, a vampire, and a creepy man with a bag.
That is pretty much all I understood of the paranormal plot, and I couldn't tell you how any of it connected.
4) The bad romance.
Kian has stalked Edie for years for reasons that by the end of the novel are not even touched on. Edie just sort of accepts that he's been keeping tabs on her forever (I think he mentions something he witnessed happen to her in fourth grade) or just pretty much forgets about that crucial fact, probably because Kian is drop dead gorgeous.
She's not even sure if he's helping her or working with aforementioned mysterious organization.
(But's he so pretty and he understands me-)
I finished the book, somehow, and my immediate thought was that I could've spent all that time reading something else. Welp, at least it helped pass the airplane ride.
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