Talk about a bland heroine, not to mention pretty flaky. So Dylan, at least, I liked relatively well. Though he was described as looking like a skater dude and had a bad propensity towards wearing V-neck T-shirts, that isn't how I pictured him. He was quiet, matter of fact, kept to himself, and just didn't really do anything that set off alarm bells. Yeah, he watched Faith sleep every night and had a tendency of stalking people, but compared to everyone else in the book, he really didn't seem all that creepy. Dylan, the obvious love interest, was okay.

But in this case, it felt like it was supposed to be more. I have nothing against best friends holding hands. And I am not the sort of person who, when seeing two girls holding hands, I think they're a couple. Liz touching things and holding Faith's hand and dating the guy she did simply because his hands were softer than a baby's bottom. Something has to come across as seriously wrong for my radar to go up. Now, my mind does not jump in that direction in general. And just the way the Author talked about Liz's attraction to how things feel running through her hands came across as majorly creepy. I didn't really care either way about Liz, until the Author introduced her obsession with touch.

Then there's Liz, our protagonist's best friend. You have to be completely brain dead to want to hang out with a guy like Wade - and his inexplicably power-hungry sister Clara, whose obsession with power and force was so ridiculous that she could audition to be the next Sith Lord (and yes, she was that horribly cliche as well). But he is so obviously a jerk that not only is he no fun to hate, but it also calls into question our protagonist's good sense. Wade is a jerk, and at least we're supposed to agree with this feeling. Um, when did creepy little twerp become a positive trait in potential friends? After that, I just knew that Hawk was one of those geeks who used his ridiculous techie talents to hack into people's personal lives and probably access porno, and it's impossible for me to feeling anything but revulsion for such a slimy little creature.

And then he started invading the two main girls' personal space and sniffing their perfume and their grape bubblegum-scented breath and eyeing their bottoms in tight jeans. I liked Hawk literally for half a second. Characters: I am saving the protagonist for last, and beginning with Hawk, the nerdy little dude who also has a tendency of talking way too much and cracking jokes that, in the hands of a different character, might be a little funny, but were mostly annoying in this.

Pulse by patrick carman