Saturday, May 18, 2013

The Heiresses by Allison Rushby

The HeiressesTitle: The Heiresses
Author: Allison Rushby
Pages: 352
Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin


**ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**
**This review has spoilers, I've marked them so that you can skip over them if you don't want to know**


The Basic Summary: It's 1926, and for three lucky girls, their entire lives are about to change. Mix estranged triplets, and devious half-brother, a fortune, and the excitement of a new city, and you're sure to be in for a wild ride. Join these three sisters as they work to adjust to their new environment, and fight to earn back  a fortune that's rightfully theirs. Just so you all know, that's a lie. But you'll see what I mean later.

My Review: This book was horrid. Everything was just sooooo boring. Ms Rushby could have cut out 100 pages from the book and you wouldn't have missed a thing. I'm not sure if it's just because this was an ARC, or not, but there were some spelling issues, and there were quite a few phrases in the book that made no fucking sense because some words were missing.

The beginning of the book started off well enough I guess. It was mainly the girls finding out that they're triplets and them being sent off to London to go live with their aunt and try to reclaim the fortune that's rightfully theirs from their douchey half-brother, Charles.

Thalia: Thalia is the oldest of the sisters, and she's just.. A piece of work. The only person Thalia cares about is Thalia, and she doesn't care who she has to step on to get what she wants - this includes betraying the people who trust her in order to get the inheritance that she believes is rightfully hers. Notice how I said hers and not hers and her sisters. Throughout the entire book, Thalia is a scheming, manipulative, bratty, arrogant skag, and she finds nothing wrong with her behavior. **spoiler**She drinks, she does drugs, and at one point she was even hooking up with Vincent (the guy that Ro was in love with). Why would she betray Ro like that? She was "helping" her by proving a point. I know what ya'll are thinking because I thought the same thing. What a Skag. Early on in the story Thalia mysteriously comes into a large amount of sums. How large? Large enough that she could buy a car, new clothes, a dog, drugs, and whatever else she felt like. We later find out that she went to Charles, tricked him into giving her the money by leading him to believe that she and she sisters were going to go to the country side. The money Charles gave her was supposed to be for ALL of the sisters. Do you know how much she spent on the sisters? Enough to buy them each a dress. That's it. Like I said, she's a skag.**spoiler** At the end there's a traumatic not really traumatic. It was a faux-traumatic event that was meant to make you suddenly sympathize with Thalia. event and Thalia does a complete character 180 and all of a sudden we're supposed to like her. No. Fuck no. I refuse to believe that Thalia suddenly started caring about the sisters that she was trying to hurt earlier on in the book. **spoiler**Thalia threw a dinner party and invited her sisters with the intention of making them see that they didn't belong in the society they now lived in. While she just wanted to embarass Ro, she really set out to destroy Clio because Edwin (the guy that Thalia liked) liked Clio instead. This pissed me off because:
1) Clio was my favorite sister
2) Clio was always incredibly nice to Thalia even though Thalia was a raging skag
3) Clio was having a hard enough time adjusting without Thalia trying to destroy her already damaged self-esteem**spoiler**

Eratos (Ro): Ro is the middle triplet. Ro is also the book smart one. Of the three, she's the most sensible one, and she's incredibly science-minded (is that even a real phrase? I just made it up. Whatever, i'm sleep deprived. Don't judge) For her entire life, Ro has wanted a sibling, so when she finds out she has not one, but two siblings? She's ecstatic. When Ro finally meets her sisters, she finds that they're not exactly what she thought, and while she's still excited to have sisters, she's just.. Less excited. Of the three sisters, I liked Ro the second best.

Clio: Clio is the youngest of the sisters, and she's also the sweetest one of the three. When the three sisters finally meet, Clio knows right away that there's something wrong. How? She looks nothing like her 2 sisters. Even knowing that there's something different about her, Clio still makes a point of trying to get to know her sisters. I liked Clio the best because she always puts others first. She's always willing to see the best in people (even when they don't really deserve it. See Thalia), and she goes out of her way to make people feel welcome around her. With all of the craziness going on with Ro and Thalia, it was nice to have one character that had a solid understanding of who she was, and nicer still to see that the privileges that she suddenly had didn't change her as a person. **spoiler**I was really happy to see her get her happy ending. She really deserved it.**spoiler**

Hestia: Hestia is seriously the most irresponsible person in the book. I get it. She's never had to watch over anyone before, but that doesn't excuse her negligence in terms of neglecting her nieces. Hestia has the guardians of each girl send the girls off to live with her, but after the first day, she pretty much forgets that they exist. During the rare occasions that she does remember that she's supposed to be caring for her nieces, she's giving them shoddy advice. **spoiler**At one point, Thalia actually has to go into REHAB because of her drug problem, and Hestia had no fucking idea until one of her friends told her.**spoiler**

The story: Meh. That's really all I have to say about it. The story itself was mostly about Thalia being a skag **spoiler**All she did was drink, do drugs, throw parties, and betray the trust of her sisters.**spoiler** Not what you were expecting, right? That's how I felt. Towards the end the story starts focusing more on what the book was ACTUALLY supposed to be about, but up until then? Nope. Mainly just Thalia and her exploits. The story was just soo boring. At first it was interesting to see them adjust to their new environment, but there are only so many parties and stupid acts of drunken debauchery that a girl can take before she just wants to scream. 100 pages could have been cut out of this book and you wouldn't have missed a thing. In fact, I wish 100 pages had been cut out. I would have rather read a 200 page story about 3 (Okay, 2. Thalia didn't really help) girls trying to get back a fortune that's rightfully theirs, than a 300 page story about the stupid actions of one greedy sister with a little bit of fortune stealing-backing I KNOW IT'S NOT A REAL WORD. LEAVE ME ALONE! thrown in to keep things interesting. Normally I can get through a 300 page book in under 2 days. In fact, I did. I read another book while I was reading this one and it only took me ONE DAY to finish it. This book just dragged on and on and on and on and on and.. okay. I'm sure you all get it. Maybe I'm just being too nitpicky. Either way, I didn't really like this book.

I was going to originally give it one star, but I've decided to bump it up to two because I loved Clio and Ro so much.

My Overall Opinion: I just couldn't get past Thalia. She was just such an obnoxious character, it annoyed me that the book mainly revolved around her and her antics. Aside from Thalia, the book itself wasn't that good. If the summary says that the book is about 3 sisters attempting to take back their fortune, that's what I expect the book to be about. If the summary had said that this book was about 1 sister betraying the people depending on her, I wouldn't have touched this book with a ten foot pole. If Thalia sounds like your kind of  character, go ahead and read the book. But if you're like me and you expect the book to be about what the summary says the book is about, this book is not for you.

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