The Holy Terror

I don't really have strong feelings about this book, but I'm leaning more towards "disliked." With that in mind though, there weren't any characters I hated, I thought the general premise for the story was clever and different, and I didn't find that Plum overused clichés or metaphors too often. Ultimately where this novel turned sour for me was the romance. I won't discount the fact that people, both young and old, can fall irrevocably in love in a short period of time. The ability to write a love story that portrays this in a believable manner in one short novel is not something a lot of authors have, and this is where I believe Plum failed.The beginning of the novel had hinted at some dark undertones and a touch of the macabre, but as things go on the story just morphs into a sappy love story like so many others out there. For almost the entirety of the novel, the heroine, Kate, constantly remarks on how plain and uninteresting she is. I believe that low self-esteem is one of the least attractive traits a person could have. I am really getting sick of all of these heroines thinking they're either too fat, ugly, or boring to be worthy of the attention of the love interest. I'm not saying I want these girls to be vain, and I know that every girl has insecurities, but I don't think it would take too much away from making these teens relatable by also giving them a healthy dose of confidence.Her love interest, Vincent, is of course a gorgeous immortal boy with gorgeous immortal friends, whom Kate doesn't even believe she has the right to talk to. He can't just be good-looking or mildly attractive, he has to stop traffic and turn heads and seem like a god to the heroine. And of course he has no flaws either ... except for the whole stalking and becoming obsessed with Kate, which is explained to be an effect of what he is, but still, I just found it to be so contrived. This unremarkable girl is just suddenly the most special thing to him, and Plum spent so much time having Kate tell me how unattractive she was that I really had a hard time understanding what he saw in her. His friends think she's beautiful and wonderful and the bee's knees and Vincent practically comes to worship her, but I just didn't understand it. She's not unlikable, she's just so ... blah, and I never connected with her. I don't even remember what she was supposed to look like, except I remember she described her hair as being "lifeless," but unfortunately that's also what her personality felt like to me.The ending was predictable and the "climax" with the villain was laughable. I think Plum was trying to make the characters speak as if they were slipping back into language from their time period, but calling someone a "farcical lifeguard-Lazarus" is such an odd insult. Pretty much everything that came out of the villain's mouth felt out of place and strange, and I think that also had to do with their character being incredibly underdeveloped. The villain was an archetype of what a villain should be and also obviously just Vincent's antithesis. And although the villain's back-story was interesting, in person they were just a walking cliché with cringe-inducing dialogue.The story really fell apart in the last few chapters and just became incredibly predictable. There was hardly any tension and then everything got wrapped up with a neat little bow, and this was unsatisfying and disappointing. Like I said though, I didn't hate this book, but I definitely didn't love it. With how things ended I'm curious to see where Plum will take the story though, so I'll more than likely check the next book out. I think Plum does have potential here with these immortal creatures and the lore that goes with them, so hopefully by the next book Kate will feel more self-worth and stop trying to convince me that she's not special.