Review: Deceived by Julie Anne Lindsey
A copy of this novel was received for review via NetGalley.
I had quite high hopes for Deceived.
Unfortunately, it fell a little flat for me. Deceived has all the tropes that have been used to exhaustion in the YA genre. Mysterious boy, instalove, damaged family, predictability, clueless heroine.
Deceived also dragged. On. And on. And on. Barely anything happened, and yet there was so much potential for things to happen. I mean this is a story about a stalker serial killer, but there are only two interactions between the main character and this evil guy. There could have been creepy shit left, right, and centre, but the room for creepy shit was just not utilised in any shape or form.
Our main character wasn’t really … anyone. She didn’t have a passion. She didn’t have aspirations. She didn’t have hobbies, or anything that she liked. She wanted to be a lawyer but even said that she wasn’t so keen. And then once it was mentioned that she liked crime shows (which seemed quite ridiculous given her paranoid recurring nightmare about someone murdering her). So it was quite hard to connect and really care about Gabriella (or Elle as everyone calls her … which made no sense but hey).
The romance was predictable, like I said before. Mysterious guy who is nice to the girl when they’re alone but a dick when they’re in public. Wants to protect her. Can’t be with her because of obligations. Still makes out with her anyway. Happily Ever After.
Overall, Deceived had some great potential but seemed to fall victim to genre clichés.
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