Croak by Gina Damico: I think I'm being insulted.

Croak by 

Gina Damico

I was so excited by this book! After all it was talking about modern day grim reapers who walk around in black hoodies what’s not to like? Unfortunately I feel like I just read a Holly Black book. 

I’ve said before that I am in awe of Holly Black’s settings and magic and it was pretty much the same for Croak. Unfortunately my utter annoyance with the characters translated as well. I know that the popular stereotype of teenagers is that they’re cursing, alcohol-craving, irresponsible, sex-crazed loonies (and I’m not saying that the stereotype doesn’t have some truth to it) but . . . why?  

Why did every single teenager have to fall under that particular trope? I mean just look at these characters.

Lex:  She was basically born with anger management issues (apparently that’s a sign that she’s a reaper candidate . . . kind of like how all the demigods in Percy Jackson had ADHD and Dyslexia) but GAH! She was such a brat. 

I get that it wasn’t really her fault, what with the prescription-grade hormonal imbalance, but I had a hard time feeling sorry for her when she was mean to basically everyone she met.

Driggs: I liked him well enough (lots of Oreos were involved) until he let giant spiders crawl all over him and then got super drunk on the grim reapers “not-alcohol”. Then I basically got retroactive heebie-jeebies whenever he talked.

Spiders are eight legged abominations what are you doing?

Mort: he’s Lex’s uncle who was super glad when she decided to go all hooligan on everybody and brought her out to Croak (yes that is in fact the town’s name, subtle guys) to be a reaper. I think I liked him well enough but he sure as heck shouldn’t have been put in charge of children. Like you guys though Mrs. Frizzle was bad . . .

Then there’s about six other junior grim reapers 

 I’ll mention them briefly because in the grand scheme of things they weren’t all that important.

Zara: obligatory accomplished junior Grim reaper who hates Lex for various uninteresting reasons.

Elysia: Equally obligatory super nice girl

Ferbus: stereotypical nerd that I actually kind of liked because I am a nerd.

And then there was a couple who couldn’t keep their hands of each other for more than two seconds which was equal parts gross and kind of cute.

Phew so many characters.still got nothing on most fantasy books though.

Likes

Frankly the whole premise was awesome: of course that’s why I picked it up so . . . But look at it. Modern day grim reapers in a quirky freaky little town along with some truly ridiculous characters was, if nothing else, interesting.

Lex was a twin! I’m a twin! I like twins.

Dislikes

I always feel bad when the dislikes outnumber the likes but, well, here we go.

The whole morality issue: So these guys basically warp around and stop time to reap souls of the (quite literally) recently deceased. So recently in fact that most of the time they can tell exactly what or who killed them. But they aren’t allowed to do anything about it. 

Okay I understand why they aren’t supposed to go and scythe the crap out of them then and there (we do have a court system with checks and balances for very specific reasons after all) but seriously! Nothing is done? You couldn’t even pull a Batman 

and get a few policemen in on the great secret that is the grim reapers and maybe, IDK, point them in the right direction?

No!? Why? Why are you guys even a secret in the first place?! I do not understand. And don’t even get me started about how ‘heaven’ in the book had zero rewards/punishments for people after they died. Like Lex pointed out, ‘what’s the point of being good while alive if there isn’t any reward or punishment?’ congratulations you have applied moral-relativity to heaven and ruined everything.

Oh my gosh why would you give alcohol to teens with anger management issues?! I know it’s not ‘real alcohol’ because apparently it has no hangover, or brain damage or any sort of consequences whatsoever! 

All it does is make you very, very happy. Yes dear that’s not beer. That’s some kind of drug. I don’t care if you don’t get a hangover it still impairs your judgment. And for some reason they give this crap to kids who will literally bite somebody for no reason.

I'm gonna go over here and wait of for explosions 

Did this author have a traumatic experience with teenagers? I mean teenagers aren’t really high on my list of likable people as it is but this was kind of . . . rude. Every other sentence seemed to be complaining about how terrible they were and . . . this is a YA book right?! Why would you insult and mock your audience repeatedly? It was just really mean.

Honestly I’m probably a lot more insulted than I should be because this is the third book in a row like this. Frankly I’m just tired. I’m tired of reading books that dumb down the rather complicated state between 13 and 21 (or maybe more like 25) to parties, and sex, and drugs and just GAH! I can’t. I am to sad.