Take a photo of a barcode or cover
2.99 AVERAGE
2.99 AVERAGE
Hmmmm. Really not sure about this book. First off any book about Secret Society should be made of win. Should be a great read. Should be intriguing and captivating. I mean really, Secret Societies ARE intriguing and mysterious – a recipe for success in my opinion. But this book, Secret Society, by Tom Dolby, fell flat.
I really wanted to be interested in the high society kids. I wanted to learn more about Phoebe art and Patch’s films, and Nick’s club promotions but the overall storyline was mundane and stagnant. Too much daily activities like sleeping and walking and not enough of the issues that mattered like the Society’s secrets, Patch’s family and his goals, Phoebe’s romance. Sadly, I found myself skimming pages just to get to the good parts… the last 50 pages.
I did enjoy the unseen-to-normal-people rich society way of living. Much like Gossip Girl fascinates the masses of teen girls, I think SECRET SOCIETY will do the same with many young girls who will find this book entertaining. It is full of fashion, parties, glitz and glamour- who wouldn’t love that? But for me, I wanted a strong plot to match the bold fashion and glamour.
I really wanted to be interested in the high society kids. I wanted to learn more about Phoebe art and Patch’s films, and Nick’s club promotions but the overall storyline was mundane and stagnant. Too much daily activities like sleeping and walking and not enough of the issues that mattered like the Society’s secrets, Patch’s family and his goals, Phoebe’s romance. Sadly, I found myself skimming pages just to get to the good parts… the last 50 pages.
I did enjoy the unseen-to-normal-people rich society way of living. Much like Gossip Girl fascinates the masses of teen girls, I think SECRET SOCIETY will do the same with many young girls who will find this book entertaining. It is full of fashion, parties, glitz and glamour- who wouldn’t love that? But for me, I wanted a strong plot to match the bold fashion and glamour.
In Secret Society we follow the lives of four students from Chadwick Prep, one of the most elite prep schools in New York City. Phoebe is the eccentric new girl in town, Nick is the up and coming member of one of the wealthiest families in New York, Lauren is the budding socialite, and Patch is an amateur filmmaker. There is something else about these students that make them special, three of these students have gained the interest of The Society.
The Society is a secret group of people that’s mission is to “preserve a way of life.” I for one, have always had a major interest in secret societies and so I was already excited about this book; and Tom Dolby has definitely done his research with this. The imagery is so vivid that I actually found myself waking up from dreams about this book and about these characters, which is a major thing for me since most books don’t get in my head like that. Some people are probably thinking “Oh no, not something else about a secret society,” but this is majorly different. Think Gossip Girl (the show) meets The Skulls (Paul Walker/Joshua Jackson movie from 2000).
After receiving text messages that tell them to go to a gritty downtown warehouse, the three students begin the initiation into The Society. This initiation concludes with each of them receiving an ankh shaped tattoo on the nape of their necks. Once they are entered into The Society, they start gaining everything they were promised: fame, fortune, friends in high places, parties, private town cars that deliver them to and from events. But what’s the price they must pay in order to have these rewards?
Things start changing when the body of a young male is found in Central Park with no distinguishing marks, aside from the ankh tattoo on the nape of his neck. Then they start to wonder, is all of this worth the risk? But questioning The Society in that way can lead to be very dangerous to not only their careers, but also to their lives and the lives of the people they care about.
I loved this book! I mean totally loved it, some of the characters are a bit cliché but I think in order to really relate to these characters at all, they needed to be. I also love the whole secret society thing. I find it so interesting and I have read all kinds of stuff about them. Fiction and nonfiction alike; The Life and Death Brigade (I love love love! Gilmore Girls), The Skulls, Skull and Bones, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, Fight Club, etc. are all secret societies either in popular culture or in reality. There are so many legends and depictions of these societies and I can’t help but to be fascinated.
I so highly recommend this book, if you can’t tell already. I am so excited for the sequel, which according to Tom himself (via Twitter @TomDolby) “I am writing THE DENDUR CONSPIRACY right now, so...fall 2010. I know, too long to wait!” I think that is too long to wait and this is the issue I have with reading the first book in a series while it’s still an ARC, because that means I have longer to wait until the sequel comes out! But this is definitely a book I will read again. There are so many twists and turns that I didn’t see coming and I can’t wait to see how they pan out. Definitely a must read!
The Society is a secret group of people that’s mission is to “preserve a way of life.” I for one, have always had a major interest in secret societies and so I was already excited about this book; and Tom Dolby has definitely done his research with this. The imagery is so vivid that I actually found myself waking up from dreams about this book and about these characters, which is a major thing for me since most books don’t get in my head like that. Some people are probably thinking “Oh no, not something else about a secret society,” but this is majorly different. Think Gossip Girl (the show) meets The Skulls (Paul Walker/Joshua Jackson movie from 2000).
After receiving text messages that tell them to go to a gritty downtown warehouse, the three students begin the initiation into The Society. This initiation concludes with each of them receiving an ankh shaped tattoo on the nape of their necks. Once they are entered into The Society, they start gaining everything they were promised: fame, fortune, friends in high places, parties, private town cars that deliver them to and from events. But what’s the price they must pay in order to have these rewards?
Things start changing when the body of a young male is found in Central Park with no distinguishing marks, aside from the ankh tattoo on the nape of his neck. Then they start to wonder, is all of this worth the risk? But questioning The Society in that way can lead to be very dangerous to not only their careers, but also to their lives and the lives of the people they care about.
I loved this book! I mean totally loved it, some of the characters are a bit cliché but I think in order to really relate to these characters at all, they needed to be. I also love the whole secret society thing. I find it so interesting and I have read all kinds of stuff about them. Fiction and nonfiction alike; The Life and Death Brigade (I love love love! Gilmore Girls), The Skulls, Skull and Bones, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, Fight Club, etc. are all secret societies either in popular culture or in reality. There are so many legends and depictions of these societies and I can’t help but to be fascinated.
I so highly recommend this book, if you can’t tell already. I am so excited for the sequel, which according to Tom himself (via Twitter @TomDolby) “I am writing THE DENDUR CONSPIRACY right now, so...fall 2010. I know, too long to wait!” I think that is too long to wait and this is the issue I have with reading the first book in a series while it’s still an ARC, because that means I have longer to wait until the sequel comes out! But this is definitely a book I will read again. There are so many twists and turns that I didn’t see coming and I can’t wait to see how they pan out. Definitely a must read!
Gee. Yet another book about rich prep school kids getting everything handed to them. How original.
It's Skull and Bones, peanut version but with some estrogen. The whole Egyptian involvement is completely contrived and never really explained. I understand we're hopping around behind the eyes of the noobs to the group but as far as I'm concerned, these guys thought the Egyptians were cool and decided to use their logos for their club. By the end of the book, they could have been pirates for all it mattered to the overall plot.
And noob tattoo dude mistake numero uno - the neck is one of the most conspicuous spots to put a tattoo. No matter how small it is, unless it's a little black dot, it's going to get noticed. No more bobs for those girls! For a secret society, they sure flaunt their marker, don't they?
As far as the writing goes, I didn't feel it was quite there yet. It was . . . mediocre. In the hands of someone with more experience or greater talent, I think it could have done better but instead we get a Swiss cheese plot that meanders in all the wrong places, is thoroughly short on suspense and elementarily written. The characters are one dimensional, narrow-minded and as woe-is-me as you'd expect them to be in their current situations.
What little information we are given of this half-assed society is awkwardly dumped in some of the most chunky and ridiculously-sounding sentences I've ever read. The fact that the invitation is only handed out to prep school kids in their junior year is laughable. Want to narrow it down anymore? People with only blue eyes? One leg slightly shorter than the other? Literally, I laughed when that information was dumped because, considering the context and the way it was said, it was just absurd.
Maybe this is something that's just showing my age but the casualness of underage drinking in this book really shocked me, not to mention the lack of consequences for these over-privileged kids. It's parentfail if I've ever seen it because if I had ever come home drunk and hours past curfew, my grounded ass would never see the light of day again. These kids are actually encouraged to act like shitheads. Again, parentfail. I'm all for lowering the drinking age to 18 because if you're old enough to die for your country, you're old enough to have a drink (because that beer is so more more to handle than those assault rifles and justifiable homicide) but the extreme casualness of it all, how out in the open it was, just really bothered me. We had to be super sneaky when we drank. These kids just did it out in the open with absolutely no consequences. How nice.
The whole secret society concept is unoriginal. The writing needs to be improved. To me, the characters were unrelatable. Because of the poor writing, it lacked the suspense required of these kids' situations. Maybe if it was there, maybe if I was able to feel their fear at what was going on, I might have been able to connect to them. But nope. Tell, tell, tell. I don't care. If I don't feel it, those characters could drink themselves to death and I wouldn't bat an eye . . . oh wait . . .
Maybe it's just my age that's preventing me from liking this one. Or the sheer number of writing flaws have thoroughly detracted me from anything that might be worthwhile in the text. Either way, I didn't like it. This one easily blends in to all the other prep school crap that's out there. Except now it's tainting ancient Egypt's good name and for, apparently, no good reason because the connection is never made.
Alas, by the looks of the end, this isn't the last we'll see of this OMG-we-must-keep-this-secret-but-lets-give-ourselves-secret-tattoos-in-one-of-the-most-unsecret-places-on-our-bodies secret society but rest assured, I won't be reading it. Inconsistencies and technical fallacies irk me. Especially when I'm sick. Irk meter is that much higher. And the ending wasn't even good either. You almost expect it for everything that's happened. But because the author can't write a suspenseful sentence, you don't actually feel it so it all falls flat.
Oh yeah, your neck is one of the most PAINFUL places to get a tattoo. Anywhere where you have a concentration of nerve endings. Where your brain stem meets your spine? I'd say that's a pain hot spot. Just another fallacy that had me not believing anything the author wrote. For a 16 year old, they'd be crying. Just remember, a tattoo needle is as thick as a dime that moves up and down really quickly that punctures your skin over and over and over again in order to wedge the ink in there. And all this being done mere millimeters from your brain stem. Hello???
And this is an ankh tattoo people--
While the circle didn't hurt at all, the butterfly body was some of the most god awful pain I've ever felt in my life. I'll be going back to get my fifth sometime in early spring. And this is on my left hip bleeding onto the top of my leg. The circled ankh is 8 years old and the body is 5. I heart tattoos.
It's Skull and Bones, peanut version but with some estrogen. The whole Egyptian involvement is completely contrived and never really explained. I understand we're hopping around behind the eyes of the noobs to the group but as far as I'm concerned, these guys thought the Egyptians were cool and decided to use their logos for their club. By the end of the book, they could have been pirates for all it mattered to the overall plot.
And noob tattoo dude mistake numero uno - the neck is one of the most conspicuous spots to put a tattoo. No matter how small it is, unless it's a little black dot, it's going to get noticed. No more bobs for those girls! For a secret society, they sure flaunt their marker, don't they?
As far as the writing goes, I didn't feel it was quite there yet. It was . . . mediocre. In the hands of someone with more experience or greater talent, I think it could have done better but instead we get a Swiss cheese plot that meanders in all the wrong places, is thoroughly short on suspense and elementarily written. The characters are one dimensional, narrow-minded and as woe-is-me as you'd expect them to be in their current situations.
What little information we are given of this half-assed society is awkwardly dumped in some of the most chunky and ridiculously-sounding sentences I've ever read. The fact that the invitation is only handed out to prep school kids in their junior year is laughable. Want to narrow it down anymore? People with only blue eyes? One leg slightly shorter than the other? Literally, I laughed when that information was dumped because, considering the context and the way it was said, it was just absurd.
Maybe this is something that's just showing my age but the casualness of underage drinking in this book really shocked me, not to mention the lack of consequences for these over-privileged kids. It's parentfail if I've ever seen it because if I had ever come home drunk and hours past curfew, my grounded ass would never see the light of day again. These kids are actually encouraged to act like shitheads. Again, parentfail. I'm all for lowering the drinking age to 18 because if you're old enough to die for your country, you're old enough to have a drink (because that beer is so more more to handle than those assault rifles and justifiable homicide) but the extreme casualness of it all, how out in the open it was, just really bothered me. We had to be super sneaky when we drank. These kids just did it out in the open with absolutely no consequences. How nice.
The whole secret society concept is unoriginal. The writing needs to be improved. To me, the characters were unrelatable. Because of the poor writing, it lacked the suspense required of these kids' situations. Maybe if it was there, maybe if I was able to feel their fear at what was going on, I might have been able to connect to them. But nope. Tell, tell, tell. I don't care. If I don't feel it, those characters could drink themselves to death and I wouldn't bat an eye . . . oh wait . . .
Maybe it's just my age that's preventing me from liking this one. Or the sheer number of writing flaws have thoroughly detracted me from anything that might be worthwhile in the text. Either way, I didn't like it. This one easily blends in to all the other prep school crap that's out there. Except now it's tainting ancient Egypt's good name and for, apparently, no good reason because the connection is never made.
Alas, by the looks of the end, this isn't the last we'll see of this OMG-we-must-keep-this-secret-but-lets-give-ourselves-secret-tattoos-in-one-of-the-most-unsecret-places-on-our-bodies secret society but rest assured, I won't be reading it. Inconsistencies and technical fallacies irk me. Especially when I'm sick. Irk meter is that much higher. And the ending wasn't even good either. You almost expect it for everything that's happened. But because the author can't write a suspenseful sentence, you don't actually feel it so it all falls flat.
Oh yeah, your neck is one of the most PAINFUL places to get a tattoo. Anywhere where you have a concentration of nerve endings. Where your brain stem meets your spine? I'd say that's a pain hot spot. Just another fallacy that had me not believing anything the author wrote. For a 16 year old, they'd be crying. Just remember, a tattoo needle is as thick as a dime that moves up and down really quickly that punctures your skin over and over and over again in order to wedge the ink in there. And all this being done mere millimeters from your brain stem. Hello???
And this is an ankh tattoo people--
While the circle didn't hurt at all, the butterfly body was some of the most god awful pain I've ever felt in my life. I'll be going back to get my fifth sometime in early spring. And this is on my left hip bleeding onto the top of my leg. The circled ankh is 8 years old and the body is 5. I heart tattoos.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really didnt like this book at all.First of all i dont really enjoy reading books about secret societies but i picked up this book hoping for a change of heart and really it was pointless. The characters were cliche which is ok but they really didnt have anything i could relate to, they seemed to have no personality whatsoever,in all they were kid of boring. The plot line seemed to be good at the beginning of the novel but in the end it just seemed like it led up to nothing.
Phoebe has just moved from CA to NYC for her junior year of high school. She is starting at Chadwicks - an elite college prep school - where she feels horribly out of place. One day a cute boy named Nick invites her to a club where he is hosting a huge bash. During the party she, Nick and Lauren all get texts with an address where they are expected to show up. They go and are initiated into a secret society. This Society soon takes over their life, and not necessarily in a good way.
Lots of intrigue, interesting characters, some unique plot twists. First in a series.
Lots of intrigue, interesting characters, some unique plot twists. First in a series.
Ok, so once again I picked up a book where the title intrigued me. I didn't notice that it was a novel for teens. Strike one.
As I read, I was horrified that there was so much underage drinking going on. Strike two.
I wanted the plot to pan out, be as interesting and fresh as it seemed in the first third of the book. It didn't. There was no real substance to the novel. Strike three.
I hope and pray that teens today are smarter than this, I really do. Otherwise we are all doomed.
As I read, I was horrified that there was so much underage drinking going on. Strike two.
I wanted the plot to pan out, be as interesting and fresh as it seemed in the first third of the book. It didn't. There was no real substance to the novel. Strike three.
I hope and pray that teens today are smarter than this, I really do. Otherwise we are all doomed.
The whole idea of a cult that allowed people to live in privileged style is quite alluring so I was fascinated and looking forward in reading Secret Society. However, I realized while I was reading that the book just didn't draw me in. I found myself skimming a lot of the passages, trying to get ahead of the story to see when something would actually happen. And a lot of things happened but they were either all packed together so it was too fast or it just wasn't very enticing to me.
The characters, Phoebe, Lauren, Nick and Patch were developed but they had a lot of loopholes in it. I felt like there were a lot of information on them but I felt as if I didn't really know them. It seemed like they were just skimming through the water and not going in deep enough. Also, the writing style has each of the kid's perspectives so it kept changing and became kind of confusing after a while.
Another interesting aspect I realized was about the Secret Society. There seemed to be a lot of information about how it began and what it did but there were a ton of information that were still unrevealed. And that bothered me a lot because I never found out everything that made it seem more believable and it just seemed like vital pieces were missing.
The best thing I liked was probably the cover. I thought it was very attractive and, no, I don't swing that way, but I thought it depicted the whole plot pretty well.
Overall, Secret Society reminded me of the Private series and a bit of the Beautiful American series so if you enjoyed those, you can check this one out too.
The characters, Phoebe, Lauren, Nick and Patch were developed but they had a lot of loopholes in it. I felt like there were a lot of information on them but I felt as if I didn't really know them. It seemed like they were just skimming through the water and not going in deep enough. Also, the writing style has each of the kid's perspectives so it kept changing and became kind of confusing after a while.
Another interesting aspect I realized was about the Secret Society. There seemed to be a lot of information about how it began and what it did but there were a ton of information that were still unrevealed. And that bothered me a lot because I never found out everything that made it seem more believable and it just seemed like vital pieces were missing.
The best thing I liked was probably the cover. I thought it was very attractive and, no, I don't swing that way, but I thought it depicted the whole plot pretty well.
Overall, Secret Society reminded me of the Private series and a bit of the Beautiful American series so if you enjoyed those, you can check this one out too.
The story idea was excellent. I'm kind of obsessed with secret societies. However, the execution left a lot to be desired. There was a lot of telling, not showing. Not strong enough to be a sequelled book (in my opinion, anyway), but apparently that's what it's set up to be. Will I read a sequel? Probably not, but maybe.