Review: Connected by Kat Stiles

*I was provided with an ARC from Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my rating or my review in the slightest. All thoughts expressed in this review is unbiased and my own.*

*SPOILER ALERT: Review may contain spoilers to some of the incidents in the book. Do not read if you haven’t read Connected and are planning on reading it.*

Title: Connected
Author: Kat Stiles
My rating: ❤
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Publication date: June 3rd 2015
Publisher: Wild Child Publishing
Summary: High school is hard enough, Em knows. Her freshman year introduced her to all the cliques, annoying teachers, and tough homework assignments. But discovering you have super powers and not knowing how to control them is a whole new level of complicated.

Thankfully, Em isn't alone. Her best friend Roz starts having unusual dreams that come true, and Tommy, Em's secret crush, can hear the softest whispers in class.

A romance blossoms with Tommy. But just as things are looking up, people start dropping like flies. A telepathic serial killer is on the loose and only Em and her friends have a hope of stopping him.

Or do they? If they don't figure out the killer's identity soon, one of them could be next.​ (summary from Goodreads) 

My thoughts: Ugh!

   That one word sums up my feelings about this book. Don’t get me wrong, the writing was okay, but that was about it. I hated the characters, the plot, and its predictability. Now, I know a lot of people have given this book great reviews, and I’m not judging anyone for liking it, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I don’t mean to offend anyone.

   Why did I hate the characters so much, you may ask.

   For multiple reasons. The first reason is that they are just so incredibly immature. It doesn’t feel like they’re in high school, more like middle grade, except for all the making out between Tommy and Emily, which has to be about a third of the book, no kidding. There is a murderer on the loose, and what do they do? They spent most of their time going on dates and completely ignoring the fact that they are the only ones who can save people from getting murdered.

   Tommy is basically just a sex-crazed teenager.

   Seriously. If Em is wearing a t-shirt her own size, he doesn’t do anything but stare at her boobs. And not very discreetly, either. He’s just being downright rude, and the worst part? Emily actually gets flattered! I have a few quotes to prove my point.

   “His eyes focused on my chest. ‘You have boobies.’

   My face flushed in embarrassment. Roz burst out laughing.

   ‘And they’re huge.’ He continued to stare.”

   And a quote from a little later, referring to his staring at her boobs unashamedly. “I finally understood what he meant when he said he was flattered. It felt good to be that desired.”

   Any normal girl would be offended by a guy staring at their boobs. It’s happened to my friend, and let me tell you, she was not happy. It is not realistic. How on earth can you consider it flattering, unless you’re extremely desperate?

   Another quote to prove Tommy doesn’t think about anything other than sex, and Em’s boobs. This is from when they go to his room, all alone, because Em is going to heal him.

   “’Go lie down, will you?’

   ‘Wanna start already? Guess that shouldn’t be a surprise.’”

   And this is only two of very many moments like this. After about half the book, it feels like the conversations start repeating themselves.

   I have another quote that I got really hung up on. It has got to be one of the stupidest sentences I’ve ever read (including the two chapters I read of Fifty Shades of Grey).

   “He wore a guilty expression I found entirely adorable.”

   What the actual Hell?

   So, this is the case; he did something that hurt her, and he feels guilty. Em doesn’t want him to be guilty, since she doesn’t blame him. And then she finds his guilt adorable? Although, I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise. According to Em, there is nothing wrong with Tommy.

   The characters lacked depth.

   A lot of things that could potentially be really deep and important stuff were thrown out the window. Tommy has a past. And Em doesn’t even care. At all. It’s like whatever he did can’t have been that bad, since he’s Tommy, and Tommy can’t do anything wrong.

   To prove this, I have another quote. Tommy has just been in a pretty bad fight, and he’s apologizing to Em. After witnessing something like that, the normal response would be something along the lines of running as fast and as far as possible. This is Em’s reaction;

   “No, it’s alright. It was… You were incredible.”

   Let’s talk about… Tommy’s obsession with Em’s scent.

   And yes, I’ve seen it before in a book, and no, I didn’t mind it then, but that’s because the author made it a funny thing (if you were wondering, yes, I was talking about Mia’s obsession over Michael’s scent from The Princess Diaries. If you have not read it, I suggest you do, because it’s awesome), but in Connected, it just made Tommy look even more like a creep (as if his staring at Em’s boobs weren’t enough).

   “’In the time it took to blink, he slid next to me, sniffing my neck. “And your scent…’ he inhaled.”

   He does that every time they see each other. Another thing is that, although he keeps going on and on about how hot she is, not once does he mention that she is really nice, or thoughtful, or anything about her personality. It’s like he only cares about her looks.

   Enough about the characters. Let’s talk about the plot.

   The plot. What to say about the plot? It’s boring, for one thing. I mean, it has the potential of being something great, which is why I picked it up in the first place, but it ends up being utterly boring. There’s more focus on the relationship between Em and Tommy, which is also boring, that I just couldn’t keep up with the plot. And Em, Roz and Tommy were just being stubborn and blind, ignoring what was right in front of their noses. I figured out the mystery in the first fourth of the book, while it took them ages to figure it out. They were so certain, although they had lacking evidence, and Em’s “super-power”, that they didn’t even consider any other options. Mostly, this was Tommy and Roz who refused to listen to Em, who had an advantage, what with her being able to sense other people’s emotions.

   At page 214, I was still waiting for something interesting to happen.

   And then, finally, it does! A plot twist that could have changed my rating from one hearts to two hearts, or at least 1.5 hearts, would Kat have played her cards better. Instead, everyone just panicked and got anxious and desperate and just started to annoy me even more than before.

   So, yeah, there you have it. I don’t think I will read the sequel, because apparently, it’s not a standalone, but go ahead and read it if you like. You have been warned.

PS: Sorry about the long, rant-like review, but I really needed to get that out of my system.