Review: Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, October 2010
Hardcover, 432 pages
ISBN-10: 1416989439
ISBN-13: 9781416989431
Grades: 9 and up

Nora should have know her life was far from perfect. Despite starting a relationship with her guardian angel, Patch (who, title aside, can be described anything but angelic), and surviving an attempt on her life, things are not looking up. Patch is starting to pull away and Nora can't figure out if it's for her best interest or if his interest has shifted to her arch-enemy Marcie Millar. Not to mention that Nora is haunted by images of her father and she becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened to him that night he left for Portland and never came home.

The farther Nora delves into the mystery of her father's death, the more she comes to question if her Nephilim blood line has something to do with it as well as why she seems to be in danger more than the average girl. Since Patch isn't answering her questions and seems to be standing in her way, she has to start finding the answers on her own. Relying too heavily on the fact that she has a guardian angel puts Nora at risk again and again. But can she really count on Patch or is he hiding secrets darker than she can even imagine?

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick may have been one of my most anticipated sequels for this year. When I read Hush, Hush last year, I fell totally in love with Patch, the fallen angel, bad boy/good guy character. I devoured the book in one sitting and I just assumed with the release of Crescendo I would feel the same way.

I kinda did and I kinda didn't...how's that for sitting on the fence? I still love Patch, though I think he was in this book far less and was considerably misrepresented throughout (I kept my faith in him the whole time, despite how things were starting to look :-))

Nora, on the other hand....and here's where I need to have a serious talk with this character: Nora, didn't you think that after several times of following your instincts, only to end up in bigger trouble that maybe, just maybe, you should not listen to said instincts?... This girl needed a huge head slap, for sure!

I totally saw who the "bad guy" was early on in the story and I'm usually easily fooled when it comes to mysteries, so that part of the storyline was fairly predictable for me. What will keep my attention with this series comes in the form of some of the other characters introduced in this book and where their stories will take us in Tempest. There is still a lot to be learned about Nora and the gang, which I'm definitely looking forward to.

Crescendo is a book filled with many unanswered questions and is left with a huge cliff-hanger. It is worth the read to catch up on where the characters stand but it's basically a bridge between the first and the third book, as so many middle books seem to be.