I was so offended by this book, I can't even...well, I can actually articulate it but seriously? Okay, let's begin this as we usually begin reviews, or rather as I do. By talking about the characters. In this instance, there are very few characters that can be talked about. Estella, Edgar, Estella foster mom, Scott and his diminutive girlfriend and the nurse that I can't for the life of me remember the name of.I have read a lot of books in my life, some I have loved and others I have hated. This might be one of the worst books I have had the misfortune to come across. We meet Estella as she gets ready to leave her foster mom's home for college where she's going work for her masters (more on that later). Oh no, before that we have a lengthy prologue which basically tells us the story we are going to be reading except it makes it all the more pathos and attempts to make it divine (it fails). Now, there is a LOT of telling and not showing in this book. Estella says something to the effect of "I'm the perfume of life." I would have laughed but I was too busy trying not to gag. And then, there's Edgar. Um... he's a professor, who looks young but is not. DOESN'T ANYONE ELSE THINK IT'S CREEPY? That a professor is asking a seventeen year old to "date?" (That's the word, date.) Like...EW. I mean, I dunno about you guys but when you say professor, I think crusty, bookish men, not to even go near how wrong it is to have (and condone) that kind of relationship between a teacher and a student. It doesn't make it right if the prof is hot. Wrong is wrong, damnit. Then there is Scott. He's madly in love (or so it seems, about one minute after he meets Estella) with Estella until she "finds" him a girl and he falls for her at speed of a bullet. Their characters could have been cut from cardboard, that's how interesting they were. There's NO character development, nothing of any originality - yeah, it is a blatant rip-off from Twilight but it's not a good one. And Estella? Okay, whenever a character says that it has been days "since I last took a shower," I am grossed out. No matter how clean you may be supernaturally being the perfume of life and all, TAKE A DAMN SHOWER or don't talk about it at all. And what's up with her not eating? It seemed like she was existing on muffins for days. But my biggest peeve with the book? I don't know if the author has ever taken classes at a university level or tried for a masters but if I were to judge based solely on what I've been given in the book, the answer would be a solid no. It's hard work. And Estella goes to class, doesn't take notes, doesn't do anything even remotely resembling schoolwork and she's there for her masters? She reads a book, a book that apparently has no name and is just an accessory to showcase her "intelligence" (which I am doubting). The classwork seems to be more suited to middle-grade (if not elementary) than to adults working for a masters in Environmental Science. There are so many things wrong with this book that one wonders what the publishers were thinking. I can't help but be offended by the sheer absurdity of it. Do they think, that as consumers, we will swallow down anything? Do they really think readers, even YA readers who suspend their expectations at a certain level and accept a mutable reality, will scoff at this. I thought Bella would reign queen as TSTL heroine. I think Estella (recognize the similarity?) just crowned herself as the new queen.
