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bookswithlukas 's review for:
Ten
by Gretchen McNeil
It's like a really bad and predictable slasher movie...and not in the fun way.
Okay, so a one star rating for this seems rather dramatic, but I'd just like to point out that if I had read this when I was thirteen or fourteen I probably would have given it a better score. A lot of YA these days feels a lot more grown up than it's target audience, but I'd say that this one is the opposite. Everything about this story (except the actual murder plot line) feels very juvenile, including one of the most nauseating romances I have read in a long time.
The plot here kind of reminds me of a series from a few years ago called 'Harper's Island' which was GREAT. It was basically about a group of people who were all alone on an island and one of them was the killer. The set up for the novel has a good amount of potential, but where this book failed was with the characters.
Now I'm not someone who especially needs likeable characters in a book, but if they're unlikeable I DO ask that they're at least interesting, and not annoying. There are ten characters in this book, and every single one of them is annoying to the ninth degree. They are complete cardboard cut outs who don't really seem to have any emotion what so ever, people die, and they don't really seem to care all that much. It also takes THREE people being killed before they even begin to SUSPECT that one of them is a murderer. That requires a pretty high suspension of disbelief that I personally could not get over. If that was me, I'd be screaming for the ferry, or risking the flaming ocean to get away from that place straight away!
The romance here is nauseating and feels very middle grade. All our main character does is talk about how she is in love with this T.J guy, she even finds a dead body at one point, and then comments how it feels nice for T.J to be standing so close to her. Guuuurl, this is not the time for a horny moment!
I'll admit that I did not see the 'twist' coming at the end, but it felt less because it was clever, and more that it was so far out of left field that the book hadn't really given you enough clues to put it together yourself. It's like in Scream 2, when the old killers mother suddenly shows up as one of the killers, despite only having had like one other scene in the movie.
Overall, if you feel you can get through the more juvenile writing and simplicity of the overall story, then give it a go. I will say however, that you could probably get the same amount of enjoyment (if not more) by just watching a trashy horror movie on Netflix. On second thought, go check out 'Harpers Island' to see this story done better.
Okay, so a one star rating for this seems rather dramatic, but I'd just like to point out that if I had read this when I was thirteen or fourteen I probably would have given it a better score. A lot of YA these days feels a lot more grown up than it's target audience, but I'd say that this one is the opposite. Everything about this story (except the actual murder plot line) feels very juvenile, including one of the most nauseating romances I have read in a long time.
The plot here kind of reminds me of a series from a few years ago called 'Harper's Island' which was GREAT. It was basically about a group of people who were all alone on an island and one of them was the killer. The set up for the novel has a good amount of potential, but where this book failed was with the characters.
Now I'm not someone who especially needs likeable characters in a book, but if they're unlikeable I DO ask that they're at least interesting, and not annoying. There are ten characters in this book, and every single one of them is annoying to the ninth degree. They are complete cardboard cut outs who don't really seem to have any emotion what so ever, people die, and they don't really seem to care all that much. It also takes THREE people being killed before they even begin to SUSPECT that one of them is a murderer. That requires a pretty high suspension of disbelief that I personally could not get over. If that was me, I'd be screaming for the ferry, or risking the flaming ocean to get away from that place straight away!
The romance here is nauseating and feels very middle grade. All our main character does is talk about how she is in love with this T.J guy, she even finds a dead body at one point, and then comments how it feels nice for T.J to be standing so close to her. Guuuurl, this is not the time for a horny moment!
I'll admit that I did not see the 'twist' coming at the end, but it felt less because it was clever, and more that it was so far out of left field that the book hadn't really given you enough clues to put it together yourself. It's like in Scream 2, when the old killers mother suddenly shows up as one of the killers, despite only having had like one other scene in the movie.
Overall, if you feel you can get through the more juvenile writing and simplicity of the overall story, then give it a go. I will say however, that you could probably get the same amount of enjoyment (if not more) by just watching a trashy horror movie on Netflix. On second thought, go check out 'Harpers Island' to see this story done better.