Review : Hexed by Michelle Krys

Summary (from Goodreads) 

Title : Hexed (Hexed #1)
Author : Michelle Krys
Publication Date : June 10th 2014
Publisher : Delacorte Press
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If high school is all about social status, Indigo Blackwood has it made. Sure, her quirky mom owns an occult shop, and a nerd just won’t stop trying to be her friend, but Indie is a popular cheerleader with a football-star boyfriend and a social circle powerful enough to ruin everyone at school. Who wouldn’t want to be her?


Then a guy dies right before her eyes. And the dusty old family Bible her mom is freakishly possessive of is stolen. But it’s when a frustratingly sexy stranger named Bishop enters Indie’s world that she learns her destiny involves a lot more than pom-poms and parties. If she doesn’t get the Bible back, every witch on the planet will die. And that’s seriously bad news for Indie, because according to Bishop, she’s a witch too.

Suddenly forced into a centuries-old war between witches and sorcerers, Indie’s about to uncover the many dark truths about her life—and a future unlike any she ever imagined on top of the cheer pyramid.

Personal Thoughts 

Hexed, with it's story about witches, was a book I was looking forward to for some time now. Michelle Krys attempted an almost satiral take on this YA paranormal story, but instead of making me want to laugh, Hexed mostly just ruined my mood.

This whole book is filled with stereotypical YA book characters. From Indigo, our main character who is clueless as to the secret world around her, to the villains, who were your typical evil guys. Even the love interest was your usual mysterious new boy who appears out of nowhere and keeps stalking the main character. Sure, they did have some distinguishable personality traits from other stereotypical characters, but at the end of the day, they were all just the same as any YA paranormal characters. Indigo was someone I didn't really have respect for from the beginning. She was a doormat when it came to her best friend, whom she allowed repeatedly to insult her on their cheer squad. Oh and she said nothing when her best friend flirted outrageously with Indigo's boyfriend. I don't know about you, but if my best friend is flirting with my boyfriend, I would definitely talk to my friend about it. And of course, we do find that that the boyfriend is cheating on Indigo with the best friend. The only character I remotely liked was Paige, a neighbor who has been vying for Indigo's attention for the longest time, but who Indigo has tried to pushed away relentlessly. Indigo, however, doesn't mind using Paige when she wants her help and Paige just let her. I get that Paige was a sweet, forgiving girl, but if someone was as bitchy as Indigo was to Paige, I wouldn't want her as a friend at all. All in all, these characters were a huge disappointment.

The plot, because it had a satirical tone to it, was actually quite entertaining at first for me, but it ended up frustrating me eventually, when the villains turned out to be cheesy, weak and had zero impact of any kind on me. My problem with them was that they were one-dimensional in every way. The world building was also shaky in many ways. The reader doesn't get much info on the world apart from some info dump here and there from Bishop and it's a shame because Krys had an interesting concept with the war between the witches and sorcerers. Then there was the biggest part in Hexed that made me drop the book entirely because I am sick and tired of this trend that seems to be part of YA paranormal books: slamming Twilight. I am aware that Twilight is no Jane Austen novel when it comes to quality in literature, but do so many author have to make Twilight the butt of so many of their jokes in their books? Quite frankly, it's disrespectful and ungracious. What's worse is that if Twilight had not been so successful, this book most likely would not have been published. Add to that a story that's clearly inspired from Twilight's characters and themes. I'm sure it wasn't done intentionally, but I'm offended on Stephanie Meyer's behalf that people make so many awful jokes about Twilight for the sake of humor in their books. It's not funny anymore and is it really a surprise that Meyer no longer wants to associate with Twilight anymore? I probably sound like an angry, bitter and pessimistic reader who can't understand a joke, but I just had to get it out.

Even without the Twilight-shaming that Hexed had going, it was a weak book that didn't really stand out in the presence of other YA paranormal books. The shallow characters, the mediocre plot line and the insubstantial world building did not impress me. Needless to say, I won't be continuing this series.

Rating 

Cover : 3/5
Plot : 1/5
Characters : 2/5
Writing : 2/5

**DNF**

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the e-ARC of Hexed.