"Don't ask, because I can't tell you right now. Everyone has secrets, Calla, even me. But can you wait until we have a fair shot, despite the secrets?"
Nocte by Courtney Cole was a very interesting read and not necessarily in a good way. But before I get into that here's the synopsis from Goodreads:
My name is Calla Price. I'm eighteen years old, and I'm one half of a whole. My other half—my twin brother, my Finn—is crazy. I love him. More than life, more than anything. And even though I'm terrified he'll suck me down with him, no one can save him but me. I'm doing all I can to stay afloat in a sea of insanity, but I'm drowning more and more each day. So I reach out for a lifeline. Dare DuBray. He's my savior and my anti-Christ. His arms are where I feel safe, where I'm afraid, where I belong, where I'm lost. He will heal me, break me, love me and hate me. He has the power to destroy me. Maybe that's ok. Because I can't seem to save Finn and love Dare without everyone getting hurt. Why? Because of a secret. A secret I'm so busy trying to figure out, that I never see it coming. You won't either.
OK so before I say everything that was wrong with this book I'll start with why I chose to read it. So this was the first book my book club read, and I'm really sorry I chose it, but I'll explain more about that later. I was really drawn to the cover, and the price. The eBook was on sale for $1.99 with regular price being $3.99. As intrigued as I was with the price, I was apprehensive as well mainly because it was so cheap so I figured the author was either an undiscovered talent or below mediocre. More often than not the latter is always the case.
What Was Wrong
The most irritating thing about this novel, besides the writing, was that it was all basically just a dream. It wasn't really a dream but pretty dang similar.
SPOILER ALERT
Calla is basically in a walking coma. She was so distraught about finding out that her mother and twin brother, Finn, died in a car collision that she tricked her mind into believing he was still alive. I'm sure there's a more intelligent word to describe her mental situation, PTSD maybe?
Honestly, I could probably have gotten over the PTSD parts if the writing would have been better. Cole wanted to write a mystery, which was fine, I love mysteries, but she forgot that when you're writing a mystery you have to leave your reader bread crumbs, so they won't be overwhelmed and totally confused when the mystery is solved. When I got to the last 90% or so I was completely off guard. We went from thinking Finn was alive and missing to finding out he's actually dead and Calla's been pretending this whole time. There was no lead up to even make us guess that he was dead. I'm pretty good at guessing the ending of novels, and I had no clue at all. It was a very "M. Night Shyamalan" kind of twist. Also the dialogue was extremely poorly written. None of it sounded natural:
My father's head drops and he stares at his hands, at the mug in his hands. (That isn't a typo.) "I'm sorry, Calla. I'm sorry that you think I've checked out. I haven't. I love you, and I love Finn."
I really hated Dare DuBray's character. Why do guys have to have British accents to be hot? I know in the next novel they go to England or something like that, I won't be reading the second book, so I guess that makes sense, but he was really annoyingly evasive and it didn't make me want to keep reading to find out I just wanted to throw the book out the window (but I was reading on my Kindle).
After reading 200+ pages of this on-the-nose dialogue and her God awful character descriptions, I'd had it and wanted my $1.99 back.
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