Girls with Razor Hearts (Girls with Sharp Sticks, #2)
Suzanne Young
It’s time to fight back in this second novel in a thrilling, subversive near future series from New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Young about a girls-only private high school that is far more than it appears to be. Make me a girl with a razor heart… It’s been weeks since Mena and the other girls of Innovations Academy escaped their elite boarding school. Although traumatized by the violence and experimentations that occurred there, Mena quickly discovers that the outside world can be just as unwelcoming and cruel. With no one else to turn to, the girls only have each other—and the revenge-fueled desire to shut down the corporation that imprisoned them. The girls enroll in Stoneridge Prep, a private school with suspect connections to Innovations, to identify the son of an investor and take down the corporation from the inside. But with pressure from Leandra, who revealed herself to be a double-agent, and Winston Weeks, an academy investor gone rogue, Mena wonders if she and her friends are simply trading one form of control for another. Not to mention the woman who is quite literally invading Mena’s thoughts—a woman with extreme ideas that both frighten and intrigue Mena. And as the girls fight for freedom from their past—and freedom for the girls still at Innovations—they must also face new questions about their existence…and what it means to be girls with razor hearts.
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0 0I received this as an ARC from Simon Pulse via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Oof.... this was so rough. I will try to keep this pretty brief, because in all honesty, I started skimming around the 45% mark and don't really have anything good to say.
This book lacked an semblance of subtly or finesse. Every single sentence felt like it was trying to be quote worthy and impactful. Every character was an over the top caricature. I felt like I was being beaten over the head by a caveman with a club - men bad.
I'm all in for feminist literature and taking out the patriarchy, but damn... Every single male in here was utter abusive garbage - except, of course, for the lone "love interest". And on top if it, this book felt the need to tackle every topic under the sun - sexism, racism, global warming, classism, wealth discrepancy, bullying, abuse, harassment, the list goes on. It was too much and made the book feel like it lacked any determinate direction.
The plot was minimal and meandering at best. The dialogue was awkward. And it drove me mad that there were paragraphs of exposition directly following every action scene reiterating what happened. For example - a character wraps her arms around a character then starts walking them up the stairs. Then in her head she states, and I quote: "I'm helping him up the stairs". Exactly zero people walk up the stairs and think to themselves, I'm walking up the stairs. Readers aren't stupid, you don't have to spell it out, I can clearly see what is happening.
Overall this was a mess. If you enjoyed book 1, I recommend leaving it there and skipping this sequel.
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