Review: Thorn Abbey by Nancy Ohlin

Review: Thorn Abbey by Nancy Ohlin
Goodreads
Release Date: May 7th, 2013
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Rating: What a colossal disappointment. Thorn Abbey purports to be based on one of my favorite novels of all time, the tense and psychologically mesmerizing Rebecca, but this retelling falls short in every way.



Nothing is as it seems in this darkly romantic tale of infatuation and possession, inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

Becca was the perfect girlfriend: smart, gorgeous, and loved by everyone at New England’s premier boarding school, Thorn Abbey. But Becca’s dead. And her boyfriend, Max, can’t get over his loss.

Then Tess transfers to Thorn Abbey. She’s shy, insecure, and ordinary—everything that Becca wasn’t. And despite her roommate’s warnings, she falls for brooding Max.

Now Max finally has a reason to move on. Except it won’t be easy. Because Becca may be gone, but she’s not quite ready to let him go…


The cover: Damn you treacherous, beautiful cover! Why must you deceive me so, with your swirling iron gate and Gothic font and pretty dress? Oh, how I wish your contents had lived up to the promise of your cover.

The story: So the book starts off with this awesome, dramatic prologue, full of horror and screaming and fear, and I was like, yes! A haunted Rebecca! With a gorgeous, Gothic setting! And spellbinding romance! A dramatic tale of jealousy and revenge!

Prologue, you lie.

I had so many problems with this book, but I'll start off with the biggest one: Tess. She is, to put it bluntly, a total creep. She literally meets the surly and boring Max once, and she basically starts to obsess over him. And I do mean obsess. Seriously, their meeting consisted of him striding up to the person Tess was talking to, his roommate, Franklin, and demanding he leave with Max immediately, without once making eye contact with Tess. Swoon. But apparently, more happened in that brief five-second encounter, because all of a sudden Tess is IN LOVE. Full, one hundred percent, Max and Tess 4evah!!!!!1!! And it's borderline psychotic. Also, the level to which she becomes obsessed with Max's ex Becca is just... There is something wrong with this girl's brain. The whole point of Rebecca is that everyone but the second Mrs. de Winter (aka Tess) is a fruit loop. But Tess is seriously unbalanced when it comes to this boy. And I don't think that's what the author intended. She follows him around, thinks about him constantly, obsesses over the three words they exchanged in class, digs into his personal life, and cries about him, all before their second full conversation.

 

Somehow, miraculously, this evolves into them dating.

I guess it's not a good YA romance these days if there isn't at least a little bit of stalking involved, right? Gender equality! Teenage restraining orders-- they're not just for male vampires anymore!

So not only is Tess a creep, but she's dumb. She has tiny moments of being charming, mostly when she's talking with Max. But then she'll be hanging out with the rich bitches (more about them later), and they will say something unrealistically evil, and all of a sudden Tess literally has straw between her ears. My particular favorite moment was when this supposedly straight A student, repeatedly shown to be the most BRILLIANT student of English in the history of Thorn Abbey, literally does not know what a curling iron is. She calls it a "long, hot metal thing" that's being used to curl her hair. She's also totally baffled by the term "LBD". IT STANDS FOR LUCIFER'S BUTT DISCO WHAT DO YOU THINK

But the worst part about Tess is that she's really, really insecure. And not in a relatable, what-girl-doesn't-hate-the-way-she-looks? way, but in a non-stop pity party way. As In Imma smack you silly if you say another damn word about it. She's fat. She's ugly. She's poor. She's socially awkward. She says the wrong things. We get it, Tess, you're the worst. Can we get back to the non-plot, please?

Yes, Tess, it's because you're fat. Everything is because you're fat. Climate change. War in the Middle East. Voldemort's return to power. All because you're fat.

But of course, Max becomes totally smitten with her upon their third creeptastic meeting, and somehow they start dating, which is achieved with such little fanfare that I actually missed it. That's right. The part where the two main characters became a couple did not even register on my radar. That's how little impact the "emotional" moments of this book had.

Ditto the romance. Like... whatever. I did not give one flying frittatta about Max and Tess. I have no idea why they were in love, or how they fell in love. They were both horrible, boring people who should be in therapy.



I love boarding school stories, and I love fish out of water stories, and I love ghost stories. So a confluence of all three of these things should have worked for me. But the boarding school aspect was dull. Tess struggled with the most stereotypical rich bitch mean girls on the planet. I mean, she is basically Jenny Humphrey, and they are basically Blair and Serena, and she is poor and ungroomed and deserves constant reminds of her inferiority. Whatever.. Must I really be forced to read about yet another clique of supernaturally beautiful rich divas with unlimited access to their daddys' platinum AmEx cards, who talk about nothing but manicures and clothes and dieting and popping pills? It's so beyond cliche now that it's actually offensive. As if all private school kids are like this. And Tess! She's so special because she eats food and she doesn't color her hair and that's why Max likes her!

No. He literally says that. "I like you because you don't know what to wear." Real flattering, jerkface. So if she suddenly developed a sense of style you wouldn't like her anymore? True love right there.



And then there's the supernatural element. Yawn. Predictable. Everything happened exactly as I thought it would, and Tess was so behind the times it was annoying.

There is almost something there in this book. The concept and setup are pretty great. The writing is simplistic, and at times irritating, but it's not awful. I actually really liked aspects of Devon, Tess's roommate, who was the deceased Becca's old roommate and ex-best friend. She's charming one moment, heinous the next, and it's appropriately unsettling. But this book never reaches full boil. It's at a simmer. An annoying, spineless, insta-lovey simmer.

I just wrote and deleted a whole long diatribe about the original novel and how this book deviates from it in ways that are upsetting, but I'd rather judge this book on it's own merits, for those who haven't had a chance to read Rebecca (do!). Needless to say, I think it's way better than this.

And UGH. The ending. Eye roll. It was supposed to be so dramatic and emotional but I just found myself giggling. This is a pretty readable book, and may appeal to some people. It just really pushed my buttons, and I read it right after a string of other disappointing debuts, so I just wasn't in the mood for yet another lackluster read. I'm probably being too harsh on this one, but it drove me nuts.

I promise good reviews are on the horizon. I'm as tired of writing Negative Nancy reviews as you probably are of reading them!