Relationships

[Rachel-K]

As Nora and Patch get more intense, does their relationship get any deeper?

Do you see any reason to trust Patch?

What do you think Jules and Vee share in common?

We get to meet Nora's mother in these chapters--How would you describe their relationship?

Do we have any idea what kind of relationship Nora had with her father?

Do you think Elliot is truly interested in Nora?

[tato]

I posted some of these answers on the "All spoilers welcome" section, but I'll paste them here so you can see them.

Okay, so, I'll start with Nora's and Patch's relationship. We never get to see a substantial dialogue between them. Don't get me wrong, I love all the witty comments and innuendos, but since this is a love story at the core, a forbidden love one, we should see a meaningful scene between the two of them. Patch's goal was to kill Nora. I mean, that's a hardcore thing, and we don't see that paramount transition from dark to light, from selfishness to love. LOVE. Actually, I don't see where the love is. Yes, there is a lot of chemistry sizzling through the pages, but it just ends like...that. Shallow, with no profoundness. There should definitely be more depth to it.

Regarding Nora's and Blythe's relationship, well, there's not a lot one can say about it. Blythe's characterization is poorly done. We never got the chance to really know her. She's just mentioned here and there, and...that's it. I remember the first time we are introduced to her, it just felt flat. There was nothing there. We just know she looks a lot like Nora, that she works her ass off to pay the house and...that's it. I can't say I know her, and exactly what type of relationship she has with her daughter, since it's a bit loose. The same goes for the relationship with her father. I can assume they were close, but since we don't have more information (not even about his death, which I think will be developed on Crescendo), I can't dig that deep on that.

And with Elliot, yes, at first I thought he was genuinely interested in Nora, especially when he wanted to defend her at Delphic. But in these chapters, he transformed. He started to reveal his true self and, well, I think I wasn't the only one who was creeped out. I thought she was dealing with a psycho. Poor Nora. I wouldn't have liked to be in her shoes when she was near Elliot. When she was around Patch though...that's a whole other issue. Lol

Tatiana

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[Rosei]

I think that Nora and Patch's relationship is getting more deeper, because he always finds a way to stay alone with her and they almost kissed already. I think that she is too involved with him by now, but she still doesn't trust him totally. He's still covered by that mystery that Nora can't stand with and it troubles her thoughts and feelings.

Jules and Vee are totally apart as a couple. She seems to like him, but he is always absent, distracted or shows no interest in her. He behaves strangely in my own opinion.

I find Nora and her mother's relationship to be very superficial, somehow empty and with no warmth. Mother is superbusy and engaged to her work to pay attention to Nora's needs and anxieties. I think that they can only communicate about this or that home detail, but I still haven't caught a deep act of kindness and concern on their relationship. And till now we can't describe Nora's relationship with her father. All we know is that she got very sad on his death and wish to keep his memories alive.

I widely dislike Elliot's behaviour towards Nora. He was already very weird and in the middle chapters we just see him trying to hurt her. I think he is a horrible person.

[dhaupt]

I do see Nora and Patch's relationship getting deeper, he obviously cares for her and even though she at every turn tries to catch him either in a lie or to admit that he's done something like beat up Marcie or Vee or flew into her windshield. Instead he just answers the questions and even though he gets mad he doesn't resort to violence toward her or anyone that I've seen so far.

I trust Patch, because I'm learning to trust Nora's feelings and actions.

Jules is a mystery still to me, he's never around long enough for me to have an opinion of him. Vee is just careless and reckless in her judgements.

Nora and her mother have a very loving relationship, however they seem more like friends than parent and child. Her mother gives her more freedom than in real life, but that may be because they went through the tragedy of her father's murder together.

But no matter her mother loves her unconditionally and would do anything for her.

I think by Nora's conversation with her mother that she had a great relationship with her father.

Elliot is interested in Nora but I don't think it's romantically I think he has evil intentions.

[MsReaderCP]

*SPOILER* on the trusting Patch question only in this first paragraph

The thing that kept bothering me about patch was that if anything happened to Nora, she would be better off with him there.  but he continues to leave her in her house at night alone when he knows that Drina is out there he leaves her in her house!!  When he knows that Vee is in trouble a block over, he leaves her in the dumpy hotel while he goes to get the Jeep.  All of these seem like bad decisions.   And while I don't ever say, OK, I  think Patch is the bad guy, some of the things he does, make me question my decision to exclude him.  and that's what makes the book suspenseful.  If I knew for sure what I suspect from the car wreck when she hits a tall guy, then the book would not be ay good.

OK to start reading again here!!

Vee and Jules don't seem to have anything in common except for a love of going out on the weekend. Which we wonder if Jules is doing only because he's friends with Elliot (at first) because he does not seem like the party guy.  So the glimpses we see of them are of Elliot and Vee partying while Jules is excusing himself, quietly doing who knows what, but Vee is having so much fun out with Elliot and not reviewing another horror movie for Nora's paper job as reviewer that she doesn't even notice!  Jules who!

[jb70]

Elliot reminded me of a character in a Joyce Carol Oates story I read in high school, I think it was Where are you going, Where have you Been but I could be way off since it was years ago.  A teenage girl is home alone because her parents and sister have gone to a family party and she opted out either because she was sick or because she didn't feel like going and was pretending to be sick.  A guy pulls up in a car and asks her to come out with him, but she doesn't know him and as she looks closer she can see he is trying to pretend to be younger than he is, taller than he is, and basically other than he is.  Elliot was like that- he at first appeared to be perfect but he was too perfect, he didn't feel real and then his temper broke through and he started to seem slimy.  It bothered me that Vee couldn't see this at all.

[jb70]

It seems like Nora somehow senses at some point that she can trust Patch maybe because of the craziness in her life or the odd ride at Delphic (although that might make her less likely to trust him because he made her feel like he was saving her from a situation he had created since it was only in her mind and didn't really happen).  Maybe the turning point was when he got mad a Marci for making her feel like she had to sneak out of the library down the tunnel.  Their relationship gets deeper but you don't see why. 

I did trust Patch,if he had just wanted to kill her why would he have bothered to get to know her?

Jules is very underdeveloped and you see very few scenes of him and Vee together, she tells Nora about being with him but he is only in a few times.

I still can't grasp Nora's mother leaving her home alone for the night as a teenager.

[Zia01]

As Nora and Patch get more intense, does their relationship get any deeper? Yes but there's so many unanswered questions still.

Do you see any reason to trust Patch? I'm not sure yet. I want to trust him but he's so dark I can't make up my mind yet.

What do you think Jules and Vee share in common? I think Vee gives Nora the taste of the wild side. Nora seems so stable and studious and Vee is just the opposite.

We get to meet Nora's mother in these chapters--How would you describe their relationship? Well since Nora isn't telling her mom stuff and her mom is gone with work all the time, I'd say it's not as close as it should be. Doesn't mean they don't get along well but they seem to just live seperate lives.

Do you think Elliot is truly interested in Nora? At this point, I don't know what his deal is, he gives me the creeps.

[7thgradeteacher]

There relationship does get a big more intense but definately hints that it's just a beginning.

Her relationship with her mom seems good, but almost like adult to adult instead of mom to daugher.  They are both still grieving the death of Nora's dad, but they don't seem rely on each other too much for help with it.  They almost seem like they are in survival mode right now - that they need to just get through the days and keep the house ect.  they don't have energy for anything more. 

I'm going to guess that Nora's relationship with her dad was really close.  It just seems like that's what we know is hinting at. 

[Galleysmith]

The relationships in this story are the absolute key to everything.  Nora's loss of a relationship with her father makes her yearn for a connection with a male counterpart.  It is that, I believe, that pushes her past her initial skepticism and trepidation of Patch into wanting more.  That and the physical connection they clearly share with each other. 

Moreover, Nora longs for the stability of relationships with everyone -- her absent mother, her mindless BFF Vee, the housekeeper even.  She tends to overlook questionable qualities in a person to maintain some stability.

[melisndav]

As Nora and Patch get more intense, does their relationship get any deeper?  Yes, it appears to me that Nora starts believing this hallucinations/dreams that she is having and she leaning more and more on Patch.  I believe that she wants to trust him but she is scared to do so

Do you see any reason to trust Patch?  At this point, I would be wary of him.

What do you think Jules and Vee share in common?  I believe that these two have the fact that they both seem to think about themselves.

We get to meet Nora's mother in these chapters--How would you describe their relationship?  I would say that the two love each other very much as they are all they have.  However, Blythe is never home.  Nora has a housekeeper to tell her secrets to.  Her mother is working very hard to support them but she puts work in front of her family.

Do we have any idea what kind of relationship Nora had with her father?  Not really.  You can see that Nora really loved her father and misses him.

Do you think Elliot is truly interested in Nora?  Yes.  But then Nora is still wary of him as she is with Patch, especially that she found out that he was a murder suspect at his previous school

[debbook]

There was something about Patch that made me trust him at the beginning, that he would not hurt Nora even though he seemed dangerous.

I think Nora is very close w/ her mom, but she doesn't want to worry her, especially after all they have been through.

I'm not sure what Vee and Jules hav ein common, Jules has no personality

[dhaupt]

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debbook wrote:

There was something about Patch that made me trust him at the beginning, that he would not hurt Nora even though he seemed dangerous.

I think Nora is very close w/ her mom, but she doesn't want to worry her, especially after all they have been through.

I'm not sure what Vee and Jules hav ein common, Jules has no personality

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I agree with your take on Patch, I trusted him from the beginning. I just never felt that he made any threatening moves or that he himself was evil even with the scar on his back obviously making him one of the fallen.

[Vermontcozy]

Bordering on deeper,but still on the surface..slowly geting more intense,Nora  must trust Patch,as I do for now..He is protecting her ,will find out more this weekend. Jules and Vee...I think they both have secrests,not sure yet ......Nora and her Mom are very close,depending on each other for support and love........Nora and her Father..Its so sad he was taken from Nora,,They had a very close relationship that would have grown..closer..Elliot and Nora..First I thought he just wanted to keep her from finding out anything about the Murder of the girl pertaining to him,so he showed interest in her..Now I think he is protecting Jules..not sure  will finish this weekend..........VtCozy

[J.R._BookWorm]

1. There relationship gets deeper

2. In the begging of the book, no

3. I don't think there's anything thing Vee and Jules in common

4. I think they were at one time close but after Nora's dad died they grew apart

5. I think Nora and her dad were close

5. In the beggining he did

[Nikkayme]

POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW

As Nora and Patch get more intense, does their relationship get any deeper?

I feel like Nora and Patch don't really have depth to their relationship at this point. Sure, Patch knows Nora because he was preparing to kill her and he learned more about her in the process, but they don't have a deep bond at all. Nora barely even knows Patch. She gets a glimpse into his past when she touches him, but that's about it. They haven't had any real conversations, just a great deal of innuendo. That's the whole point though. Patch is the mysterious bad boy to Nora, so she's supposed to be intrigued by the unknown. Just because Patch and Nora get more intense, it doesn't mean the mystery is gone. In fact, I think that is part of the reason why their relationship intensifies so quickly. Nora knows nearly nothing about Patch, so she is more and more drawn to him in an attempt to figure him out.

We get to meet Nora's mother in these chapters--How would you describe their relationship?

Nora's relationship with her mother seems very underdeveloped. The book could only be so long, so some characters were bound to not have a great deal of development. From what we got though, Blythe seems like a very kind woman who cares deeply for her daughter. It seems like she doesn't know how to balance working and taking care of her Nora now that her husband is gone. Nora cares deeply for her mother, but seems to be just fine without her.

Do we have any idea what kind of relationship Nora had with her father?

If I had to guess, I would say that Nora was much closer to her father than she was to her mother. Just the way he is talked about and how Blythe isn't around all that much gives the impression that it may have been like that for a while. Blythe may have been around more before Nora's father's death, but it doesn't seem like they were close then either. It appears to be the opposite with Nora's dad though. Even though not much is really sad about him or his death, I get the impression that Nora was quite close to him.

Do you think Elliot is truly interested in Nora?

At first I thought Elliot was truly interested in Nora, but as I got more into the book, Elliot became more of a creep. He seems like a genuinely nice guy in the beginning and I really enjoyed him teaching Nora how to hit a baseball, but as the storyline progresses, Elliot doesn't seem truly interested in Nora at all. Once Nora finds out about his ex-girlfriend, I started to believe he was not only disinterested in Nora, but also that he was one of the antagonists in the story.

[sararhiannonm]

I feel this book spotlighted Nora and Vee's relationship more than Nora and Patch's, but I feel this was so because this novel is an introductory novel. Patch was intended to be a mystery -- a mystery that Vee and Nora were trying to solve, together. When Nora figured Patch out, it was near the end of the novel so their strong feelings for each other didn't seem realistic. It wasn't so unrealistic that it was a dealbreaker, just they hadn't spent enough time together, in front of the readers. They just kind of jumped from the mystery and ulterior motives to love. They didn't have many experiences together to make me LOVE them together, as a couple and as a team. Not yet. But I do like them together and want to see more of them. I feel a sequel to Hush, Hush would be a prime opportunity to place more emphasis on the couple and build their relationship. I loved this book but I feel a sequel is needed so it won't be a big tease, giving us too little, too late.

[mediamissy]

As Nora and Patch get more intense, does their relationship get any deeper? I find that their relationship progresses like most teenage relatioships do with peaks and valleys. There is an obvious attraction but nothing completely deep yet. Do you see any reason to trust Patch? Pathc is one of those people you are never sure if you can trust 100% or not. I believe that sometimes we have to take the jump in order to learn. All relationships are risks. What do you think Jules and Vee share in common? I am not sure I get there relationship either other than they are both a bit "Different" We get to meet Nora's mother in these chapters--How would you describe their relationship? I don't remember that. Do we have any idea what kind of relationship Nora had with her father? No Do you think Elliot is truly interested in Nora? I wonder sometimes, I feel like he may just be someone looking for the girl they can't have.

[liisa22]

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debbook wrote:

There was something about Patch that made me trust him at the beginning, that he would not hurt Nora even though he seemed dangerous.

I think Nora is very close w/ her mom, but she doesn't want to worry her, especially after all they have been through.

I'm not sure what Vee and Jules hav ein common, Jules has no personality

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I agree -- I also trusted Patch that he would not hurt Nora. I never got the feeling of 'Nora, run!', not as far as him hurting her physically.  He didn't even raise those 'mother's instincts' that we have; and mine were/are pretty right-on.

Jules= no personality  

[Becca-Fitzpatr…]

Laughing at all of the Jules = no personalities!  Maybe Vee has enough personality to make up for what Jules is lacking