Review: Girl Meets Underworld - Jess Watkins

Title: Girl Meets Underworld
Author: Jess Watkins
Pub Date: February 12, 2013
Publisher: Opis Publishing
Page Count: 224

Having lost her mother and brother, Stella stands on the roof of her building, about to jump. She is stopped by a handsome young man, who jumps first. Somehow, he survives and Stella soon discovers that Conner holds a dark secret and more than a passing connection to her own unhappiness.

But Conner isn’t the only man to take an interest in Stella. Will is dangerous. He has mood swings, a crazy older brother and the ability to heal abnormally quickly. Stella knows what Conner is, but what exactly is Will – and why does he appear to know more about Conner than she does?

 I'd like to think that I'm a good person, at least for the most part. I hate it when I get a request review or when I request a book, get the copy and then have to go "no, there's no way I can sugar coat this." There is no way to say this nicely because the truth can hurt, no matter how it's put out. I'm going to try to maintain the professionalism, though. 

A copy was received in exchange for a 100% HONEST review.

This book, simply and plainly was a complete mess. Though it's written for YA, I felt like the mentality of the main character was quite low at a lot of times and that was why I really couldn't connect with the main character and even the story in general.

Title discussion? I really thought this book was going to be UNDERWORLD... You know, like Death and souls and stuff (Meg Cabot Underworld?) I didn't expect or want it to be that series of crappy movies Underworld (Vamps vs. Lycans Werewolves)

Read the synop. if you haven't becuase that's what I'm going to discuss. This synopsis was what led me to believe that it was going to be some kind of contemporary book, but no, it's a Twilight-styled vampire vs. werewolf thing. There is no mention of the supernatural at ALL in the synop and if there was, quite honestly, I probably would've been turned off. Vampires and werewolves are not my thing, though there have been novels that have pleasantly surprised me. I love paranormal and supernatural, but still...

This book honestly just made me want to DNF or even just tell the author I couldn't review and somehow, I managed to make my way through it. We've got this main character named Stella. Yeah, Stella? Remember what I was saying with Twilight...? How many names rhyme with Bella? I'm not accusing the author of anything, it's just a coincidence. 

  

It started with a girl who was about to suicide and in like 10 pages later, we're introduced to this guy who's a vampire and who's taking her to dinner and acting like a boyfriend. Yeah, I got this that is a Supernatural book, but that doesn't mean you have to go completely bonkers on the pace. It was far too fast to be believable and contributed to the plague that is instalove in the YA society. From there I expected it to get better you know, just a rough start but it didn't.

 We literally have too many ideas in one novel and not enough pages to fill them. I applaud Watkins for her ideas because it isn't easy to have all these ideas and frame them together, but they didn't make sense in a lot of places. The first spot where I saw the warning signs was when Conner takes Stella out and on the way she meets her father who is a) vampy vamp and b) AWOL since she was like 4... And then the whole situation shock is over in 20 pages? If the novel was 500 pages, it would make more sense and because I've got kindle, I was so surprised to see that there were only 200-300 pages!

There was also zero character development in Stella because she was stupid in the beginning and stupid throughout the novel. Okay, just think: You know a guy who has random mood swings, vampires don't like him, he's referred to as a dog and hides away during a full moon... What is he? I bet my readers know, but Stella didn't until the 3rd quarter of the book. And then Will (the wolf) is shocked that she figured it out because he totally didn't make it easy for her.

But while we're on the topic of stupid heroine, let's go to my favorite topic in a book: cliches. This is not the only book with cliches, but it does have an ABUNDANCE of them. I'm going to list a bunch of things and take a drink whenever you involuntarily roll your eyes at.

- Girl has a missing father

- Father is the leader of vampires

- Vampire and werewolves (sworn enemies) fight over a human girl.

- Human girl is missing a parent

- She ignores her friends to spend all her time with the boys

- There's a vengeful ex of the MC's love interest that tries to kill main character.

- Father is getting remarried to a stepmother who hates his human MC child.

- The line "you make me feel less like a monster and more human".

- Evil brother of one of the love interests.

- Father with loving intentions but abusive actions. (The "I promise I'm going to change" thing.)

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as mean because I'm just so frustrated at this 1st draft work. If Jess Watkins needs areas to improve in, I'd definitely say to refine the pace of the novel as well as the events. I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to shoot Stella, Will, Stella's dad or any other character because to me, they were all UNLIKABLE! (Especially Stella's Dad because he was this asshole who hurt Stella physically, tried to tell her what to do despite barely ever being in her life and torturing werewolves in his spare time. I mean, my Dad plays cards in his spare time...)

If this is an "inspired by Twilight" novel, then maybe you should know, but I actually despise Twilight. I'm anti-twilight as well as the "you can like whatever YOU want and I won't judge you" sort. 

I can honestly say that nothing positive came to mind while writing this book except for the fact that I know that it will appeal to other people. I mean the Twilight saga is so successful so I can bet that if Watkins took extra editing time and even some revisions, it could be as popular as Twilight. I just found it messy, too fast and not something that I'd like to read anyway. It isn't even the plot; I don't typically like the V vs. W thing...

Born in Lincoln but raised in Shropshire, Jess Watkins is currently in her final year of university studying a Masters in Chemistry. She has lived in three different countries and owns an unreasonable number of t-shirts. A Whovian, Browncoat and Sherlockian, Jess loves fantasy and sci-fi as well as animals, reading and skiing, and of course writing.