Stuti's blog for depleting ships

'Tis my firm belief that if you want tea, you shouldn't make it yourself. Or more like, it's something I've learned over time. Just the thing to show for a decade and a half of living and reading, isn't it? But I also know what you should do if you want tea: a little cough here, a little eye-rolling there and then make up some kind of totally factual affliction. Also, have your younger daughter make it. In case you don't have kids, visit people. Bother others and go to their houses unannounced. Wait long enough that, out of politeness, they have to ask you whether you want coffee or tea or something. Obviously, you must always show some resistance lest people catch up to your game. But NEVER make it yourself; that's just poor taste. But perhaps you are a fan of coffee? The obvious choice is a cafe or your little sister.

BUT THOSE ARE JUST MY FAMILY VALUES! BUT YOU MUST HEED THEM!

Countdown follows the story of a girl who wants to drink lots of coffee and tea, but you know, family values and all? So she goes to this room where she's locked up and there's a serial killer, too and she asks him for coffee and tea. But grrl, he's locked up too! But what must she do now? SHE WANTS TEA AND COFFEE!

I'd advise her to for chips but you know, Kira's(the grrl) take a turn for the worse, it seems. I mean, he's a grrl now, doesn't like killers(booh!) and isn't interested in chips. So I, being the most magnanimous of readers, tell her to visit a Starbucks(oh shush, I'm not that magnanimous!). So she goes and drinks and drinks and drinks away and overwhelms the reader with drinks in order to hide the numerous plot holes and general stupidity and the blatant encouragement of addiction in her story. And she drinks and drinks and drinks and starts wearing cardboard and trolling parks and becomes a MADAO and yeah, goes on drinking and drinking and drinking and GAME OVER.

But that's just the way of life, I guess. You never know what might curse you to madao-dom. You can also never guess what you might end up reading, despite your own preconceptions and perceptions. For instance, I know I couldn't have read a book with so poor world-building, lackluster characters and befuddling plot, instead of a book on drink-binge, but here it says I did. The universe expands in mysterious ways.

• Turns out the girl didn't want coffee, but she did steal fries.
• Turns out she didn't invite herself over to the killer; she was abducted.
• Turns out she did share something(keys) with the killer(who's so smexy, apparently).
• Turns out she hates killers but not the killer, who turns out not to be a killer.
• Turns out to a be a pathetic, unoriginal attempt at jumping the bandwagon of The Hunger Games legacy, instead of just a pathetic attempt at teaching family values and the evils of caffeine addiction.
• Turns out she's in a deadly game where every mistake is fatal.(I guess excessive caffeine can also prove to be fatal.)
• Turns out there's a roman-chik interest that keeps polarizing our dear Kira.*gasp*(Yet again exemplifying how much Kira's changed.)
• Turns out this was a book I didn't want to read, despite the name of the MC.
• Turns out the madao-ness has gotten to me as well, and  I'm leaning more towards writing about coffee than writing this review.

What a typical turnout. BUT GIVE ME ONE LAST LINE BECAUSE OHMI-FUCKING-GOSH, the book tried to dramatize the events and happenings with histrionic that ended up seeming redundant and eye-roll-inducing. (Yes, I've dropped the charade now.) Stuff like:

 

That's all it was. Just a small shadow of emotion smothered under a blanket of icy darkness.

Review copy provided by Harlequin Teen. Thank you!