I definitely liked everything about Dangerous Girls a lot more and like.... Neither of those white boys were worth any type of drama sis ( )

I have decided to do a thing called 'short reviews' in which I will write short reviews about books that I read, that I still haven't written a full review about it. Because it has been a while, or because I just haven't had the time since I've read the book. But I did want to share with you the way I felt about the book, so here it is - the first short review!

To be honest, I didn't think this book was as amazing as Dangerous Girls was. With that book, the ending left me BAFFLED and made me want to know what was going to happen next, but I didn't really have that with Dangerous Boys.

The book was very exciting, I loved the story and the difference between this book and DG (while Dangerous Girls was about a group of teenagers partying their asses off on Aruba, Dangerous Boys was about a mundane town where everyone knows everyone), and I also really liked how they were also a bit the same okay I wasn't really a fan of how both stories were about someone cheating on someone else and people ending up dead because of that, but hey what can you do about it?.

The writing of this book was just as good as Dangerous Girls, and it made me want to read on and on and on and on. But it was also a bit of a letdown. I had been expecting the police interrogations and interviews that were in Dangerous Girls, but this story was more like a story. Divided into two parts, 'Then', and 'Now'. The Then was telling the story of Chloe and the brothers, and how they met - and the Now was after the fire had happened.

I did find it very nerve wracking at some points, and I really did want to find out what had really happened, but I have to say I wasn't that surprised when I found out the truth. But yeah, even though the ending didn't leave me as baffled as DG's ending, it did make me want to know what was going to happen now - it made me do the 'OH DAMN' thing though. Because OH DAMN.

In the end, I enjoyed Dangerous Boys a lot, but nothing will really top the way I felt after finishing Dangerous Girls. Nothing.

My opinion on this book in one gif:

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Wow. Haas writes some of the most twisted and unreliable characters/narrators I've ever read. I thought that when reading [b:Dangerous Girls|16074758|Dangerous Girls|Abigail Haas|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1356513050s/16074758.jpg|21869436] and I absolutely think that about Dangerous Boys.

The story weaves between the past, the fire, and the present, but in a way that flows when you don't think it would. Chloe starts out as a typical teen in Middle America, but you soon see that everyone wears a mask of some sort.

It is best not to know too much about the story outside of the blurb, for every small twist and revelation provokes questions and has you trying to turn the pages faster. Dangerous Boys is gritty, suspenseful, and masterfully written; definitely one of my favorite psychological thrillers. ( )

Nobody's told you how to say those things. Nobody said you ever could. So you stay silent, and restless, and guilty.
Bad, for wanting so much more.
Bad, for not appreciating everything they give.
Bad, for all the dark places inside your soul you try so hard to hide.

I hate being the person who takes a raving 5-star wielding book and seeing it only as 'okay.' Abigail Haas blew me away with Dangerous Girls and I expected no less with Dangerous Boys. I suspect that's where the problem lay, for me. I went into it with too high expectations and found myself, yes, racing through it but, at the same time, thinking, "Okay, so?"

Unlike Dangerous Girls, Haas tells you pretty early in the story pretty much everything that happened that night in the lake house, so there isn't much suspense. You know, by around 20%, that someone crucial is dead. You know, by 30%, exactly what happened. The meticulous way it is detailed gives you no space to think, "Is it any other way?" And if a detail that is supposed to be shocking is revealed, you either find it unbelievable or shocking.

Dangerous Boys left very little to the imagination. So my problem stems from, primarily, the weird characters. I felt completely and utterly detached by every single one of them.

Family is a big deal to me. It's the way I was brought up. Family comes first, your life second. I have given up going to university so I could stay home and be close to my family, I regret it every day, but I don't regret being here at home. So when Chloe resents her mother (sure, she has reasons, but they aren't good enough for me) and decides to ship he off to their long lost aunt, I was furious. You don't do that to family. You don't wash your hands of them so you can move on with your life. You just don't.

"She just needed some incentive to keep it together," I told him, closing my bedroom door and stripping off my jacket. "It's either me or the psych ward."
"Why don't you pick the latter?" [...] "You should commit her, it would get her out of your hair."

And for all her do-gooding, Chloe dumps her mother in the worst way possible, on someone whom they haven't spoken to in years. She made her mother feel worthless, like something dirty she found on the street, and treated her like a child. Sure, desperate times call for desperate measures, but these weren't desperate times at all. Chloe wanted a reason to go to New York with her boyfriend's brother, and screw his brains out.

That irked me.

The other two main characters I couldn't stand were Ethan, the boyfriend, and Oliver, his brother. Ethan, at first, was sweet, gently, the perfect boyfriend but he quickly became clingy, annoying, like a child in constant need of reassurance. He's described as "fumbling", "eager", "sweet" too many times for my liking. Instead of seeing a strong, sweet boyfriend, I saw a fourteen year old boy with his dick in hand, wondering what to do with it. You know?

I didn't believe in the deep, loving relationship they supposedly had before Oliver came into the picture.

As Johnny Depp once said, "If you love two people at the same time, choose the second. Because if you really loved the first, you wouldn't have fallen for the second."

That's what I couldn't stand. That Chloe was such a weak person that she couldn't dump her boyfriend. Instead, she ran around behind his back with his brother, screwing him, laughing about him, only to crawl back into his arms when the going got tough. She was a weak, nasty girl who couldn't get her priorities straight.

Oliver, on the other hand, is the complete opposite, and I hate him. Hate him. He's the kind of arrogant asshole that makes you want to slap him, but you don't, lest you give him some sort of satisfaction. Everything you do, is wrong. How dare you try and live life your way? How dare you want to live at home, or love your boyfriend, or take classes? How dare you be a "sheep"?

"Don't quit on me now and go spiralling back into your little "what have I done?" pity party," Oliver replied. He took my arm in a firm grip, pulling me back around to look at the body, at all the blood.
"Don't," I murmured weakly, but Oliver held firm.
"You can't play that innocent act with me now, I was there, remember?" His eyes drilled into me. "I watched you take the shot. I felt your heart race as you pulled the trigger. It was your choice. You did this. So own it. There's nothing wrong with it."
Nothing wrong.

I applaud Haas for creating an incredibly creepy, first class psychopath. I couldn't see any appeal or charm because I was too busy grabbing the pepper spray. I didn't see what Chloe saw in him. He's the kind of bloke who is hot, crazy, and makes you run in the opposite direction.

This "love triangle"? It didn't work.

Some pieces couldn't be glued back together. Some people weren't for fixing. Sometimes, the only thing to do was burn the whole fucking world down and start again.

It was fast paced, incredibly well written, but it lacked the Dangerous Girls oomph. It seemed to start and end in fifty pages. I didn't get the ending (what the fuck was that about?!) and everything came off as shallow, cold, detached. It wasn't my cup of tea.

So to conclude, I'd like to say one last thing: Don't read this if you think it's going to be as mind blowing as Dangerous Girls. Have no expectations whatsoever, and you may enjoy it more than me. ( )

Firstly, I would like to say a massive to my favourite fellow bloggers, Charnall & Amanda who recommended this book to me in the first place. Only a few weeks before I requested this book on Netgalley, had I started to hear about Abigail Haas and her first book Dangerous Girls. So you can imagine my excitement when I first heard about her new book being on Netgalley, although I never expected to be accepted.

Anyway on to the review. When I first started the book I didn't know exactly what I was getting myself in to. But I could tell straight from the start that it was going to be a book to remember, and I wasn't far off. The books is set in 2 sections, the past and present. In the past, Chloe is the full time carer of her depressed mother, looking for a way out of town to finally do something for herself, when brothers Ethan and Oliver walk into her life. In the present? One of the brothers is dead, the other in critical condition. Which one is which, is something you will have to read the book for because every time you think you know who it is, something happens to leave you doubting it.

Ethan is a sweet and caring boy, he is so utterly in love with Chloe that it breaks my heart how she treated him at times. He worships the ground she walks on and it seems at times her thoughts are somewhere else and when Ethan's not so sweet or kind older brother Oliver comes home from college, its easy to see where her head is at. Ethan was there when she needed someone, but she has this deep routed connection to Oliver that she can't make sense up but can't ignore either.

Everything about the book flowed perfectly, from the time difference between past and present, to the character development and the relationship’s in the story. Chloe is flawed, like really flawed, at times she is a terrible person but that's what makes her so believable. Ethan is sometimes too nice and Oliver too mean, they all have traits to make the character's in the book absolutely perfect and Abigail Haas is so unique in her story telling. She subtlety puts clues in the story, but not enough to give anything away. Just enough to keep you guessing.

I am so happy that I not only requested this book but was told about it. It was without a doubt, far much better than I ever expected. I was gripped from the start and it held on to me till the end. I don't think a lot of people have heard of Abigail Haas, or of her fantastic books. She without a doubt an author you should keep your eye on ( )