*based on an ARC edition
I will say before I begin that I may not be the best audience for this book. I have degrees in psychology so the subject matter involving the sociopathic Cadence did nothing but annoy my sensibilities. I have to say with regret that I did not like or enjoy this book. Sphynx and Cadence are the children of life-long friends, their mothers having been best friends since they were seven; so much so that at seven they decided on their "life plan". This plan involved their children one day being best friends and then getting married and having children of their own. They didn't plan on Cadence being a monster. When the children were ten Cadence cuts open Sphynx's face, leaving a scar and causing his mother to take them both to live in England, away from Sphynx and her mother. When the kids were even younger, Cadence catches a butterfly and crushes it emotionlessly in his hand, only crying when he saw what the appropriate reaction was. Given my education (and people without it would probably know too) I immediately knew that the character was a sociopath. I admit I thought the story was about something else; namely a teenage couple who had an abusive relationship. This was a whole lot worse. Cadence is diagnosed with leukemia when they are 16 and asks that Sphynx come to England to see him, and for some unknown reason she agrees. Not only that she decides she has to stay until the end, even though he is nothing but cruel and terrible and on several occasions physically attacks her. She learns that he was diagnosed as a sociopath and for another unknown reason feels sorry for him. She thinks of all the emotions he can't feel and somehow thinks this is something to empathize with. Perhaps this is because the author was very young, but sociopaths cannot miss what they never had. The author paints the character of Cadence as someone to sympathize with, but that is akin to feeling sorry for Ted Bundy because he killed all those people. The final straw for me was that for quite some time Sphynx debates killing herself to die with him simply because he tells her they are meant to die together. This is ridiculous and made me really dislike her character. Then she tells him she loves him, because, presumably, she heard a line in a song that said "love means watching someone die". There was not even one aspect of Cadence worth such emotion, and if someone had such emotion that person would also be mentally ill. So while I very rarely give very bad reviews, this book unfortunately warranted one. The writing was actually very good, it was just the plot, if for no other reason than it must have been very poorly researched. And slightly dangerous. Every day a teenage girl decides she can fix the monster she loves and trust me it never goes well. They aren't all sociopaths of course, but to give the emotionless depth they don't possess is not something any author should do when writing for a teenage audience.
I will say before I begin that I may not be the best audience for this book. I have degrees in psychology so the subject matter involving the sociopathic Cadence did nothing but annoy my sensibilities. I have to say with regret that I did not like or enjoy this book. Sphynx and Cadence are the children of life-long friends, their mothers having been best friends since they were seven; so much so that at seven they decided on their "life plan". This plan involved their children one day being best friends and then getting married and having children of their own. They didn't plan on Cadence being a monster. When the children were ten Cadence cuts open Sphynx's face, leaving a scar and causing his mother to take them both to live in England, away from Sphynx and her mother. When the kids were even younger, Cadence catches a butterfly and crushes it emotionlessly in his hand, only crying when he saw what the appropriate reaction was. Given my education (and people without it would probably know too) I immediately knew that the character was a sociopath. I admit I thought the story was about something else; namely a teenage couple who had an abusive relationship. This was a whole lot worse. Cadence is diagnosed with leukemia when they are 16 and asks that Sphynx come to England to see him, and for some unknown reason she agrees. Not only that she decides she has to stay until the end, even though he is nothing but cruel and terrible and on several occasions physically attacks her. She learns that he was diagnosed as a sociopath and for another unknown reason feels sorry for him. She thinks of all the emotions he can't feel and somehow thinks this is something to empathize with. Perhaps this is because the author was very young, but sociopaths cannot miss what they never had. The author paints the character of Cadence as someone to sympathize with, but that is akin to feeling sorry for Ted Bundy because he killed all those people. The final straw for me was that for quite some time Sphynx debates killing herself to die with him simply because he tells her they are meant to die together. This is ridiculous and made me really dislike her character. Then she tells him she loves him, because, presumably, she heard a line in a song that said "love means watching someone die". There was not even one aspect of Cadence worth such emotion, and if someone had such emotion that person would also be mentally ill. So while I very rarely give very bad reviews, this book unfortunately warranted one. The writing was actually very good, it was just the plot, if for no other reason than it must have been very poorly researched. And slightly dangerous. Every day a teenage girl decides she can fix the monster she loves and trust me it never goes well. They aren't all sociopaths of course, but to give the emotionless depth they don't possess is not something any author should do when writing for a teenage audience.
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