Hades by Alexandra Adornetto

Hades by Alexandra Adornetto
Release Date: August 30st 2011
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Add it: Goodreads
Overall: ♥1/2

This is rated 1.5 stars because whilst I still hated it with a passion, stuff happened (not necessarily a plot), but things apart from "I love Xavier's hair" happened.

I don't even know where to start. There is a countless number of contradictions and inconsistencies in this instalment... The first one I noticed occured in the first three pages...
"It was six months now since the ordeal with Jake Thorn"

THE NEXT PAGE...

"Since the violent encounter with Jake last year"

So, the book starts off in October around Halloween, six months before October would be April which is not the year before. That is just simply stupid Ally dear. Also, a few pages later, ANOTHER contradiction occurs.

"It [the party house] had been vacant so long that the power had been disconnected", then a few pages SENTENCES later...
"Someone plugged in an iPod dock and suddenly the house was filled with music so loud it shook the dusty chandelier above us"
This occurs in the same paragraph. If it was a battery operated dock, fine whatever. But she said "plugged in" which should be impossible, but once again this isn't convenient, so Ally added it in anyway.

Later on, after some cool exorcism and whatnot, "Ivy retracted her wings, and sank to her knees in exhaustion", alright that's cool. The next page, [after Gabriel retracts his wings] "He wrapped a strong arm around Ivy's waist to support her and she leaned against his shoulder, regathering her strength. A moment later her wings also retracted"
So, she retracted them twice did she? Without "unfurling" them again, she retracted them again. If I've read this wrong, please tell me.


Xavier and Bethany's relationship is still as sickening and obsessive as ever. They both enjoy smelling eachother's T-shirts in order to fall asleep... Mmmm... creepy!
I have no idea who the characters introduced in the first few chapters were and quite frankly, I don't care. But, I have to agree with one of them when she tries to tell Bethany how messed up her relationship is,
"What's your favourite football team?"
"Dallas Cowboys," I said without hesitation.
"And why's that?" Hallie asked.
"Because it's Xavier's favourite team"
The girls proceed to ask Beth a bunch of questions and try to make her realise that she needs a life outside of her boyfriend. Then, it's like Beth doesn't care, it's almost as if this entire scene was written just as an inconspicous "fuck you" from Adornetto, to the readers who hate their relationship. My boyfriend is obsessed with Rugby and I don't care. I don't know how it work and I can name two teams. Do I care? No. Does he care? No. Ally Beth, grow up.

The writing in Hades also did not improve since Halo.
"I couldn't bring myself to do what my friends called the "s'up nod" - it made me feel as if were in one of those music videos Molly watched on MTV where men in hoods rapped about "homies" and something they called "bling"
 Unless you're trapped in the 90's, nobody uses the words homies and bling anymore. It's not half obvious that Ally needs to get out more and 'live a little' (as said in my Halo review, haha)
Every time I begun to remotely enjoy something, it got ruined and my hopes were crushed by preachy sentences, quotes from the bible and by Bethy daydreaming about her loser boyfriend.

Bethany still takes the cake for stupidest YA heroine.
"Something was wrong. I could feel it. Every celestial instinct warned me that we needed to get out of here. Fast. I found a Weeping Willow in the front yard and leaned against its sturdy trunk"
What? Every celestial instinct is telling you to get out of there and you go and lean against a tree? And a Weeping Willow! Wouldn't you have to wade through a Weeping Willow's leaves or whatever in order to lean against it's trunk in the first place? This clearly hasn't been thought through. Beth once again demonstrates her intelligence and her ability to look after herself. Once in Hell, Beth decides to wander off and check it out and gets in trouble. But she defends herself right? Wrong. She just stands there and says "I'm Jake's guest" and almost gets raped, until Jake rescues her because she can't do anything for herself.

As for Xavier, he is still somebody I'd gladly punch in the face. He is a complete jerk who has no care in the world for any other person except for his Bethy-Boo (or 'Huggie Bear' hahahaha). He is meant to come across as caring, and you're meant to feel sad for him. No I don't. He pissed me off the entire time and I now hate him even more thanks to this instalment.

The characterisation in general is no better. Lucifer is nicknamed "Big Daddy" by his minions (haha, I love that word) and wears a white suit and cowboy boots. In my mind, he looks like KFC's Colonel Sanders. In short - Not very scary. OH. I almost forgot to mention... Lucifer is a fan of using Powerpoint presentations in Hell to demonstrate whatever point he wants to make. Geez. Although, one thing I'll give Adornetto props for is Molly/Gabriel. I actually gave a shit about them in this book. I would've been quite satisfied if Xavier wound up in Hell with Beth, and stayed there and in turn, we learned more about Molly/Gabriel's relationship (which still shouldn't be allowed to happen, but hey the rules have already been screwed).

And people, if you're wondering, the stereotyping and judgements didn't stop in Halo!!
Adornetto is back to her essentialist, naive and judgemental way by first making Hell a place full of clubs, party-goers, black people, homosexuals and people who wear mini-skirts. Oh, and she obviously doesn't like, "I'm in Miami Bitch" because this is a song that demons listen to in Hell. The descriptions of Hell are pathetic. There are a bunch of clubs full of people smoking, drinking and quite possibly having sex. I dunno about you, but drinking and partying sounds pretty good to me as punishment, probably not as good as heaven, but it's definitely not bad. One of the new secondary characters is black, wear leather miniskirts, drinks alcohol (and she has some cool looking shoes) and is named ASIA. WTF was Ally thinking? I like Asia though for the sole reason she says this to Bethany:
"So what's with the Mary Sue outfit?" Asia asked, plucking at the frilly sleeve of my dress. "You got some fetish for Southern belles? It's very pure. That's what this is all about, right? But did you really have to dress her like she's twelve?"
"No one dressed me," I snapped.
"Oh, how cute!" Asia threw me a scathing look. "It talks."
Oh, I just realised, this is another stab at the reader that Ally seems to be making.

There are so many things that pissed me off about this book, I have about four pages worth of bookmarks on my e-reader. One of the major things that irked me was that Ally is under the impression that there were girls in the Hitler Youth. NO. JUST NO. The girls had a completely different organisation called the League of German Girls in which they learned how to raise children and how to be domesticated. They weren't part of the Hitler Youth (or the HJ) and they certainly weren't allowed to be SS soldiers. I love history, in particular WW2 history and to see it screwed around like that seriously annoys me. Do your research Adornetto so you don't make stupid mistakes! Another stupid mistake is the TITLE OF THE BOOK. Hades is the Underworld and the name of the Underworld God in GREEK mythology, not Christianity. Hades is not Hell. Hades is not Hell. Hades is NOT Hell!

Apart from wanting to know more about Molly and Gabriel, the only thing I enjoyed about this was the exorcism scene. We finally get to see some angels in action instead of them cooking/cleaning and using the power of love to defeat demons. Gabriel and Ivy seem pretty darn cool in this scene and I was pleasently surprised as to how much I enjoyed reading this chapter.

All in all, another terrible piece of crap. Thank god I have a year until I inflict myself with torture again.