Delilah S. Dawson

"Near future thriller about a teen forced to become an indentured assassin who has only three days to complete her hit list--with the added complication of her sole ally's brother being the final assignment"--

Daniela V.

Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.

This is a dystopian satire of the United States of America (now owned by a bank) with too much romance for my taste. 


  


Everyone knows that I don't read too much young adult or paranormal romance, but I met Delilah Dawson by Servants of the Storm, a paranormal story. It surprised me very much because it had gruesome elements that paranormal romances usually don't have and the romance was not the centre of the plot. So, when I requested Hit on Edelweiss and got approved, I jumped all around my house screaming. 

Hit has Delilah's touch of weird, and that's what I liked the most. She takes a few ideas of common things people do, for example: no one reads the fine print; takes the economy of the United States and the relationship between banks and the US and writes a satire.

Oh, yes! I love ironies and satires so much! So, by saying all of this I'm telling you that this book is quite extravagant. It tells the story of Patsy, a teenage girl that one day is confronted by the managers of a bank called Valor National. They tell her that Valor owns the United States of America now and that, thanks to a tricky clause hidden in the fine print of a credit card application, she has two options: to see how they kill her mother (because she can't pay their debts) or to take on a five-day mission to complete a hit list of ten names. To those on the hit list, she must offer three choices: pay the debt, agree to work as a bounty hunter like her, or die.

Everything was alright until a romance was spotted. I don't want to give away too much information about it because it would be spoilery, but believe me when I say that a love story in that context and with those two persons was unbelievable. And I hate when romance is introduced incoherently and seems forced.

So that killed the book for me. I was going to give Hit 2 stars but the ending is mindblowing. I thought I knew where the story was going but it turned out not to be something expected, which I'm glad. I really think the sequel would be great because the characters that fell in love in this book are no longer on the same situation and the ending of this novel is the ignition for a big explosion on the second one.

 "(...)Most of the time, I prefer creation to destruction..." 

I liked how death is not shown partially, there is blood and other body fluids everywhere... this book has that gruesome touch that made me enjoy Servants of the Storm so much.

Also, the decisions Patsy must make are not treated lightly and she thinks a lot about what she needs to do to survive. Another positive thing is that she is not hypocritical neither mediocre just to be more likeable. 

 "(...)Killing a person -it was both a million times easier and a million times harder than I'd thought it would be..." 

"(...)I had some level of sorrow for everyone on my list so far. Not so much for Robert Beard or Dr. Ken Belcher, maybe, but everyone was a victim of one kind or another, even if they were just victims of their own failures or addictions or dreams..."

So, I'll definitely read the sequel just to see if the story improves, because I liked the plot and the resolution of it very much. It's a shame the romance was mediocre.

Hit

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