Review: See Me by Wendy Higgins

See Me

Author: Wendy Higgins

Release: March 14th 2014

Genre: Romance, Supernatural, Faeries, YA

Plot:

While most seventeen-year-old American girls would refuse to let their parents marry them off to a stranger, Robyn Mason dreams of the mysterious McKale in Ireland, wondering how he’ll look and imagining his cute Irish accent. Prearranged bindings are common for magical families like her own, however when she travels to the whimsical Emerald Isle she discovers there’s more to her betrothal and McKale’s clan than she was led to believe. 

What starts as an obligatory pairing between Robyn and McKale morphs over time into something they both need. But one giant obstacle stands in the way of their budding romance: a seductive and deadly Fae princess accustomed to getting what she wants—and what she wants is McKale as her plaything. Love, desire, and jealousies collide as Robyn’s family and McKale’s clan must work together to outsmart the powerful Faeries and preserve the only hope left for their people.

Goodreads 

Review:

This is now, without a single doubt, the absolute worst fucking book I have ever had the misfortune of coming across. It drove me to desperation, to complete and utter desperation, it had me almost crying in frustration multiple times and the only reason I actually even finished this piece of trash is because I read it along with Tori. We both pushed ourselves to make it through and I swear if it hadn't been for that I would've long dropped it after chapter 2.

I just. I am SERIOUSLY not even kidding when I say I almost cried because it was so bad. I either felt like sobbing my eyes out from how horrible it was, or I felt like punching the wall, or possibly going on a rampage. I swear to God if I'd had a physical copy of this book, it would have been the very first time where I actually would have flung it across the room out of sheer despair. I feel like I have been personally abused and victimized by See Me, no honestly — I feel like I have been violated. I really, really do and I can't wrap my head around the fact that a book could make me feel this bad.

I almost don't even want to go into an actual review of the events of the book, 'cause doing so would make me have to relive all of it and I am almost scared to do so. But I will. To spare anyone else the desolation that is reading See Me.

WORLD-BUILDING

Let's ... let's start with this. Because this is probably the least problematic zone in all of this since, well, there is nothing here. Nada. Higgins doesn't really go into world-building at all, all she uses is the simple basic story of Faeries that's been around for centuries and she even expects the reader to know everything about that from the beginning. What's the Summer Court? You don't know? Sucks to be you. Faeries take consorts? But not human consorts? And the consorts are, like, only temporary??? What? You didn't get that? lol, whatever, MOVING ON. Higgins put minimal effort into this, saving time to move onto more important things, like ...

PLOT

Like this surprising, wholly original plot that has NEVER been seen before! What is it, you ask? Well. A girl is destined to marry this dude, she's been chosen to do so to rescue the bloodline, and she's been handpicked by the Fae royals when she was just a baby! Our special, special heroine. Fearing that her betrothed will be butt ugly and short and horrible, she is so pleased to find out that he's stunningly good-looking and tall! Whew, she sure got out of that one. So, all's well in this utopia, the only annoying thing being that there's no WiFi, but Robyn our special snowflake can deal with that, she even bonds with the people and she volunteers to do chores in the village. On top of all that, she's falling in love with her fiancé, and he with her! Awww, so sweet! But uh nuh! What's that? There's this Fae girl, super gorgeous and sexy, and she's got the hots for her boy, what a bitch. They  have history, so she's basically like a super possessive ex or something and tries to win him back, but she's not playing fair. So, Robyn has to use everything in her arsenal to make her happily ever after with McKale come true!

CHARACTERS

Sorry, did I say McKale? Yup! Sure did!

What can I tell you about him? Well Robyn lovingly calls him "Kale", and he has a beard ... kinda ... along his jawline?

So ... like this? Only, of course, he's a ginger, so his beard would be ginger as well. Because he's Irish! And he speaks in this super hot peasant accent that Higgins makes sure to never stop writing phonetically, so that we could never forget that he's never ever stepped foot outside his tiny hicktown for fifty years. 'Cause that's how old he is; 50. He's also real smooth with the ladies, especially with Robyn, always being so mesmerized with modern technology and trying to understand it better for her sake, and out of curiosity. Like, when he was really intrigued by nail polish and painted her toe nails, very cute. Or this one time when they went swimming and this happened:

“I've ne'er seen material such as that. May I?”

I nodded and he reached out, feeling the edge of the tankini top where it met my mid-section. The back of his fingertips brushed against my stomach and the prickly heat flared up again. He used both hands now, pulling at the fabric to see how it stretched. I could see the cobbler in him, fascinated by this creation and wondering how it might be used on the feet of Fae. 

When he was done examining my suit, I held out my hand and he took it.”

Awww that's so adorable! And so hawt!

But you know what's not hot? Whenever the FFG (which is this super funky acronym for "Freaky Fae Girl!" Because you always have to give sluts who try to steal your boyfriend a bitchy name, that's rule #6 in the How to be a Heartbreaker game) came around and touched him, he immediately fell under her spell. Not his fault though! He can't help it.

“His body has an auto-response to her magic, Robyn. You should be pulling him closer not pushing him away.”

(Let's just ignore the missing punctuation in this)  Uhm. Sure. Let's just give the boy an excuse for this, because girls are always the ones to blame! Seriously, why is she wearing such short skirts anyway??? Not like he could control his responses then. Fuck that shit.

As for Robyn, while she certainly doesn't like that whenever the "FFG" is touchy-feely with her bf, she also kind of just ... accepts the predicament, kinda gives him the silent treatment for it (but not in a moody piss-off-if-you-like-another-woman kind of way, just in a it-makes-me-uncomfortable-to-talk-to-you-knowing-you-kinda-have-feelings-for-someone-else way), but also hopes the problem will just go away on its own and doesn't do jackshit about the issue. That's always the way to go about things bothering you! A+ thinking, gurl!

Anyway, Robyn is just like Anna (the protagonist in Sweet Evil), in that being in her head makes me want to take a sledgehammer to my own head. I admit, Robyn doesn't have quite as many cringe-y lines as Anna does, but it was still no fun for sure. 

“"Yay!" I laughed at my own girly exclamation.”

I won't lose a word about any of the other characters, let me just say that I have not enjoyed any of them and that they were all a bunch of fucking idiots and leave it at that.

ROMANCE

You know, this started out really innocent at first and I thought I would at least be spared from something completely atrocious, and while there are certainly romances out there that are worse, this relationship just felt random. You know, I always feel really uncomfortable doing anything "vulgar" like burping or yawning during sexy or romantic scenes, you know, when the characters are currently passionately making out against the wall hen house or something, but I had absolutely no problem with farting during these scenes. At all. And I feel like saying this is more than enough, then again, I don't know if you get how significant this is for a person like me, being able to fart during key scenes like those. Anyway, let me continue with how fucking cliché and stereotyped their relationship is then. As I already mentioned, the book starts with Robyn fearing that she'll end up with a fugly dwarf for all her life, but — how could it be any other way — of course she ends up with an Irish sex god who is coveted even by a very attractive Fae girl, despite the fact that Fae are supposed to feel nothing but disdain for humans and view them solely as pets and toys. Whatever. Anyway, the love triangle is set in place, and there's feelings of distrust, jealousy and annoyance all around, but there's always time to throw some randomized cliché scenes in there, like the sneaking away to a party and dancing really hot, going swimming together, the obligatory teenage pregnancy scare, yaddi yaddi yadda. It's all there. This is like one huge pile of any stereotype ever, the only thing missing was the prom scene, but hey, we have this wedding Binding ceremony thing, which is kind of like prom, soooo. Summing it up, this romance did absolutely nothing, it didn't even conjure feelings of utter annoyance, because it was just there and the plot and characters bit already raised enough despair in me to last me a lifetime.

As for the conclusion of the plot, it just... the whole issue was solved so easily and so randomly, yet again, it was a joke. A simple, ridiculous joke. In fact, I've decided to just view the whole book as one long, huge joke that's Higgins' and my dirty little secret. She didn't actually mean anything that's written in this book, and this is only her first ever draft published, which is why I felt like I was reading bad fanfiction written by a 13-year-old most of the time! Hahahaha! So funny! So, so hilarious! ...... 

Okay. Okay. After having listened to Metal and Screamo for the entire time writing this review and being able to let off a little bit of steam, I feel a bit better already. However, I still feel very traumatized by See Me and I truly never thought it'd be possible to beat Fallen as my worst book ever but apparently, it is.

Let's hope that I'll be able to just suppress the memory of this and that it'll fade from my mind in due time. Fingers crossed. Also, thank GOD it's a stand-alone.

I'm out. I am absolutely done with life. This book has drained me.