REVIEW FOR HEARTLESS BY MARISSA MEYER

Note: This review is spoiler free (spoilers are all marked and have warnings)!
Book: Heartless
Author: Marissa Meyer
Genre: Fantasy
Age: For readers 12 and up 
Rating: 3/5 Stars

This book started off SO WELL! Unfortunately what pulled me in initially didn’t carry onto the rest of the story. Still, this book wasn’t horrible and I didn’t feel like chucking it at the wall at any point in the story, so I consider that a success. However, considering the fact that the central plot of this book is romance, and it is written by Marissa Meyer (who is a great writer but isn’t that good at writing romance in my opinion), there are obvious reasons why this book fell flat. 

What I didn’t like: 

1. Catherine: Oh this girl BOILED MY BLOOD. This book should have been titled: “A Whiny Girl Complains”, because that is all she does in this story. (I can see how this is ironic since I'm also a whiny girl who complains about every single book I read on this blog hehe but let's ignore that). Catherine literally just complains in her room all day instead of actively doing anything about her situation. She never defends herself at all and just listens while the people around her insulted her. I can’t believe the King chose to marry Catherine out of everyone. What did he even see in her? And that’s another thing, Catherine was a little rude towards the King. He seemed like a nice enough guy and so the best line of action she should have taken was to tell him in private how she didn’t have feelings for him. Her main issue was disappointing her parents, so she should have talked to the King privately and see if he could call it off without letting the parent’s know it was her idea. But then again... if that happened there would be no story at all. 

Overall, Catherine got on my nerves. I just don’t understand how she went from being very sweet to having severe anger management issues at the end? Especially in the way she treated Mary Ann- it just seemed very sudden when she blamed her for something out of her control (Spoiler: How DARE Catherine prioritize Jest over Mary Ann and be like “Mary Ann should have died and I would have let her be gobbled by the beast if only Jest was alive”. GIRL, Mary Ann has been there for you since you were born. Jest has known you for all of a month or so. And why would you ever wish somebody dead? That too, your best friend?)

Sigh. Why couldn’t the Jabberwock have just eaten Catherine?

2. Catherine and Jest: *YAWN* Ok so you’re meaning to tell me that these two met in the King’s garden and then looked at each other and the first thing that came to their minds was: “I’m in loveeee!”? Catherine at least had some dreams about him so she was curious as to who he was which is more understandable, but why did Jest suddenly fall in love with her after seeing her once? He literally said: “I have wanted to kiss you since I saw you in the King’s gardens”. As a passionate member of the Insta-Love Hate Group, this made me so boreddd when reading about their relationship. I can’t ship them if I don’t understand why they like each other and if I see no chemistry. 
In a book of 400+ pages, they basically met like 5 times in the whole story and we’re supposed to treat them like Romeo and Juliet? Ok that was a bad comparison since Romeo and Juliet suck too and have no chemistry, but you know what I mean. With this forbidden love trope, where was the angst? The passion? 

3. The Ending (SPOILERS SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH): Was the ending supposed to be shocking? First of all I knew from the time that Catherine went to get a pumpkin that Peter was hiding the Jabberwock. Did I know that his wife was the Jabberwock? No. But when I read that Catherine heard scratching noises on the farm and Peter was keeping a huge pumpkin, it was obvious he was hiding the Jabberwock and the pumpkin was probably food (it turned out to be a cage). Then Catherine literally sees a chewed hat belonging to one of the Jabberwock’s victims and she makes no connection. She was like: “Huh a chewed up hat from the person who was eaten last night by the Jabberwock on Peter’s farm? Yah that’s not suspicious at all…”. Plus if any reader paid attention, they would notice how at every event the Jabberwock attacked, there was always pumpkins. At the King’s black and white party there were pumpkins, at the baking contest when Catherine brought pumpkin pie (that’s when the Jabberwock attacked) and at the movie theater, when Peter’s wife brought pumpkin pie. And who sells pumpkins?! PETER. How did no one make this very obvious connection? 
Then there is the fact that Jest’s death is literally written in the book a hundred pages before it happens, so least to say, it was very predictable. Come on, if three weird old sisters give you a prophecy that you’re going to die, then you better be making funeral preparations because they’re telling the truth. Still, I thought I would feel some remorse at his death. Nothing. I think the most I felt was a yawn coming. I didn’t even like Jest anyways. He was such a flat and bland character. 

What I did like:

1. The Setting: I really felt like I was sitting in Wonderland because of all the characters, the way Marissa Meyer described the setting  and events. I just LOVED the atmosphere. Maybe that's why I’m not giving this book a very low rating? It certainly is a huge factor. I would suggest reading a short version of Alice in Wonderland before reading this book. Otherwise, you would miss on a lot of references on characters, quotes and setting.
2. The Food: Warning: Do not read this book when you’re hungry. I made that mistake and was searching through my kitchen for anything sugary every two seconds. The descriptions of the food made my stomach grumble from time to time! I love Catherine’s baking because I felt like I could smell the desserts throughout the book!

Overall, I’d say this book isn’t too bad but it can get tedious at some points. But it’s a quick enough read, and it does bring Wonderland magic, so it might be worth a shot!

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Read my Spoiler Free Review for "The Shadows Between Us"

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