Book Review: Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

Synopsis*:
Nora Grey's life is still far from perfect. Surviving an attempt on her life wasn't pleasant, but at least she got a guardian angel out of it. A mysterious, magnetic, gorgeous guardian angel. But despite his role in her life, Patch has been acting anything but angelic. He's more elusive than ever (if that's possible) and what's worse, he seems to be spending time with Nora's archenemy, Marcie Millar.

Nora would have hardly noticed Scott Parnell, an old family friend who has moved back to town, if Patch hadn't been acting so distant. Even with Scott's totally infuriating attitude, Nora finds herself drawn to him - despite her lingering feelings that he is hiding something.

If that weren't enough, Nora is haunted by images of her murdered father, and comes to question whether her Nephilim bloodline has anything to do with his death. Desperate to figure out what happened, she puts herself in increasingly dangerous situations to get the answer. But maybe some things are better left buried, because the truth could destroy everything - and everyone - she trusts.
*Copied and pasted from Goodreads. 

My Rating: 3/5 stars
Who Recommended it to Me: I read the first book and liked it, so naturally I wanted to read this one. 
Who I'd Recommend it to: Fans of the Twilight Saga and fans of the first book in the series. 

My Review: 

I'm going to have to give this book 3.5 stars because while it was a really good book, there are some key things that bothered me and can't be overlooked.

First off, it was really captivating. I finished it in a day and couldn't put it down. Becca Fitzpatrick really knows how to capture you into Nora's world and feel when she's scared, when she's happy, when she's sad. Several times, I could feel my eyes widen or my hand grab the edge of my seat as she told something particularly astonishing. She writes in a really inspiring way, so that's what I admire about this book. I also love the storyline: Regular girl meets super hot fallen angel and they fall in love, but there's really more to the story than their love. It might seem kind of cliche, and it is sort of cliche, but it seems different than other typical YA love stories I've read about, which was kind of what I liked about it.

In the first book, I really liked Nora. I thought she was awesome and kick-butt and I could relate to her alot. But then in this book, she started acting like a pure idiot, too needy and jealous. She jumped to conclusions really quickly and obviously if it weren't for some really dumb moves she made throughout the book, she would be in a different place where she was at the end of the book. Even Vee started to annoy me. She didn't believe Nora and was too wrapped up in Rixon and making Nora jealous that she kind of forgot she was Nora's best friend. Surprisingly enough, I never got annoyed with Patch--I always got annoyed with Nora for being annoyed at Patch, if that makes any sense. I always knew that Patch was innocent, and that he wasn't the Black Hand. Same with Scott. But anyway, I'm on Team Patch.

Another thing that frustrated me about this book was that it was such a mess. It was poorly organized, to tell you the truth, and so many new things came up that it was hard to keep track of it all. In the midst of everything, I forgot that Nora's mom was supposed to be having an affair with Marcie's dad. And what's the deal with that? I got sooo confused with that whole scenario that I started to give up, then I had to reread it for the book to make sense, which really, really frustrated me. >.<

All in all, though, I would say that if you liked the first book (as I did), then this one is worth a try. I was expecting something brilliant from this book, despite a few warnings i got that it wasn't as good as the first book. Yeah, it definitely didn't read up to my expectations, getting only a 3-star rating (I'm floating somewhere between 3 and 4 stars), but I would still say it was definitely worth the read. The writing isn't high quality or anything, but this one is a page-turner and one of those ones you should just curl up with and read in one sitting.