Review Detail

Don’t let the gorgeous cover fool you; this book is bizarre!

” ‘Did you kill your aunt?’
I ate the last bit of grilled cheese. I licked the grease from my fingers. ‘Probably.’ “

And that is how Hanna meets her mother! Well, that’s certainly a great way to draw me in! From that point things just get weird. On Hanna’s first day at Portero High, she notices two peculiarities: everyone wears black (to blend in), and they all have earplugs (to keep out the calls of hungry things). Of course Hanna is supplied with earplugs by a teacher, but she only wears purple, so she sticks out like a sore thumb. Then there’s the glass statues that students group around and mourn, and the mass amount of missing person reports. Portero, Texas certainly is not what Hannah was expecting.

Hanna isn’t exactly normal either, aside from her strict purple dress-code. She’s on enough medication to run her own pharmacy and talks to ghosts. She’s a super quirky character and I liked her immediately. Sure she’s a bit strange, but she knows who she is and isn’t afraid to be herself. I also liked how she displayed some vulnerability towards her cold-hearted mother. I just wished there was more focus on her mental illness, other than her mother telling her to take her pills.

I really enjoyed this book, even though some of the weirdness was verging on cheesy and ridiculous. Some of the monsters seemed to have climbed out of a Syfy Channel movie, but I’m not complaining! I like odd, and if you do too, go pick this up!