Review of Night Owls by Jenn Bennett
Feeling alive is always worth the risk.
Meeting Jack on the Owl—San Francisco's night bus—turns Beatrix's world upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive...and possibly one of San Francisco's most notorious graffiti artists.
But Jack is hiding a piece of himself. On midnight rides and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who this enigmatic boy really is.
----------------------------------------------------------
(In the US Night Owls is called The Anatomical Shape of a Heart)
I really liked the concept of Night Owls, enough for it to remain quite high on my wishlist or quite some time. However the execution was pretty poor. The blurb gives the impression of two people that meet on a midnight ride and perhaps fall in love over time, I had an idea in my head that most of the book would be on a bus, or they would meet night after night. However, Beatrix meets Jack on a five minute bus journey and they become pretty infatuated with each other very quickly, to the point where it almost felt like insta-love, a trope more often seen in fantasy YA.
The good parts about this was ALL THE ART. While Jack spends his time graffiti-ing Big Gold Words (view spoiler) on public property, Beatrix is an art prodigy with a focus on anatomy. She's going through her dark phase and has ditched all her coloured pencils in favour of structured, anatomical drawings with a goal of getting into a good medical school and making books or something.
However, I never understood Jack. He basically ditched her fairly early on without even a text, leaving her to then track him down and no matter what he says Bea just... simpers. When he straight up lied about a major event she practically shrugged and I still don't understand why he lied. Also they both have spectacularly shit parents and I couldn't understand why Bea's mother treated her 18 year old daughter, who had a job and her own bills, like she was a bratty 13 year old.
What killed this book for me was the gushing, cringing, crawling, in your face, up your arse, in your closet, romance. She thought about him constantly. She wanted to fuck him constantly, she thought about his stupid unwashed belt far too much and the whole thing made me want to vomit violently and excessively. I nearly DNFd the book with 50 pages to go.
Did you realize there's a 12 word sentence you can say to your partner... that will trigger deep feelings of love and impulsive attraction for you buried within his heart?
ReplyDeleteThat's because deep inside these 12 words is a "secret signal" that triggers a man's instinct to love, idolize and guard you with his entire heart...
12 Words Will Trigger A Man's Desire Response
This instinct is so hardwired into a man's brain that it will make him try harder than before to do his best at looking after your relationship.
In fact, triggering this influential instinct is absolutely important to having the best possible relationship with your man that the instance you send your man one of these "Secret Signals"...
...You will soon find him open his heart and soul to you in a way he never experienced before and he'll perceive you as the only woman in the universe who has ever truly fascinated him.