Pointless

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

This book was an utterly pointless addition to the Fallen Crest series. I listened to this considerably long series because I first came upon The Boy I Grew Up With and then the Crew duet, and I liked those well enough--despite a few complaints--only to find out that this series actually came before them. But I became increasingly disenchanted with Tijan's writing with each Fallen Crest installment. The storylines were unnecessarily complex while the motivations of the characters were exceedingly juvenile (e.g. The leader of the popular crowd at the private school seeks revenge because the rich, popular football star and his brother chose to attend the public school, and she whines that they should have been HER friends. Seriously?). All of the adults behave reprehensibly and then wonder what on earth causes their teenage children to act out.

Each book was littered with inconsistencies, contradictions, and implausabilities. I could write an entire novel just fixing the mistakes the author makes about her own characters and timeline. For example, Becky Salloway, Jeff Salloway's cousin, is erroneously called Becky Sullivan in one book and is said to be Tate Sullivan's cousin, but then she goes back to being Salloway in the subsequent book. Adam Quinn is said to have been accepted to Harvard Law School, but he is only going into his junior year of undergrad, so there's no way he would have been accepted to law school yet. The group's second house at Cain University supposedly has a security perimeter around it that sends an alert to their cell phones if anyone other than them crosses it. How exactly does that work? Are the four residents of the house microchipped? And how come other people--like Adam Quinn--keep entering the property without any alerts being sent? Why is the friendship between Becky and Sam put up on a pedestal when they were really only friends for like three weeks? In high school Sam is recruited by Cain University at her cross country meet, and she says that they are extra interested in her when the scout finds out she also runs track and field, yet in Fallen Crest Forever (book 7), which starts at the beginning of her junior year at Cain, we are told that she never went out for the cross country team, only the track team, which, scholarship aside, doesn't make sense because long-distance running is what she excels at. In Fallen Crest Forever (book 7), Sam says that had Taylor arrived any earlier when Adam Quinn was threatening Mason with a gun that it would have been Taylor's second gun-related incident, the first being when her mother was shot and killed in front of her. But the second incident was in Logan Kade (book 5.5) when Taylor herself is shot at by her friend's bookie. Then the third incident was in Fallen Crest Home (book 6) when they attend a party in Rousseau where a biker shoots a rival biker, an event that Taylor specifically likens to the incident with her mother. So Adam Quinn would have been Taylor's FOURTH gun-related incident.

That brings me to this book. I unfortunately read a couple reviews that contained spoilers but didn't warn against them prior to listening to the book, so I had some idea of what to expect, and I was not looking forward to it. That being said, those reviews were wrong. REMINDER: THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR FALLEN CREST NIGHTMARE. The book does not really take place before the events in Fallen Crest Forever, the previous book in the series. The events in Fallen Crest Nightmare take place AFTER the events in the main part of Forever, but before the time period covered in Forever's epilogue. This confused me immensely when I took into account the other review that said that Taylor dies in this book since she is present in Forever's epilogue. I chalked it up to another inconsistency on the author's part--albeit a MAJOR one--but when I listened to the whole book, I found that there was an explanation for it. There was not, however, an explanation for why the costume Sam saw on the creepy guy at the club was on her and Mason's bedroom floor. Was Mason the guy at the club? That doesn't make any sense since he wouldn't have had time to get there from Los Angeles that fast, nor would he want to scare Sam. Did he just happen to have the same costume as the creepy guy? Or did Sam see the costume prior to going to the club and then in her drunken haze just imagine some guy wearing it? That also probably doesn't make sense because Mason hadn't been in Fallen Crest before she went to the club, so how would she have seen his costume? Did the creepy guy break into their house and leave the costume in their room to scare them? That's the most likely scenario, but Mason doesn't seem weirded out by the presence of the costume, nor do they follow up on it. So it just remains unexplained.

Then the "bonus scene" at the end served no purpose whatsoever. If the novella was intended as just a scary story, then it should have ended on the discovery of the mysterious costume. In that case the costume would have made more sense as a spine-tingling cliffhanger meant to make you speculate as to how it got there, but instead they go about their business the next day intending to scare some frat guy who had been harassing a female classmate. And Sam's plan to scare the guy while he is working in a haunted house by playing sound effects of a woman screaming and other scary noises is asinine. HE'S WORKING IN A HAUNTED HOUSE! All those sounds would be expected to be heard in that setting, so why would they scare him?

This novella shouldn't even really be included in the Fallen Crest series. It doesn't add anything to the story, especially since it is book 7.5 after Fallen Crest Forever (book 7), which concludes with the flash forward HEA. In fact, there is really no reason why this story needed to be about the Fallen Crest group of characters. It could have featured a brand new cast and been much more enjoyable considering how the preexisting histories of the Fallen Crest group contribute to the unbelievability of the plot. Furthermore, this book spent so much time recapping the characters' relationships that it ended up being a lot longer than it needed to be. All of the books in the series do a little bit of recap of important details from previous books just like most series do to refresh the memories of readers/listeners who consume the books as they are released rather than one right after the other once they have all been released, but this book went overboard. This is probably because it was originally featured in a magazine, where I suppose it would likely be read by people who had not necessarily read/listened to the rest of the books, but being in the category of people who listened to all the books consecutively, the excessive recap was annoying.

Basically, you can skip this book, probably even the whole series.

3 people found this helpful

Judge for yourself (Give it a chance)...

I don't know why there are so many negative reviews for this book. I almost returned it before even reading it but I wanted the full Fallen Crest storyline. This is just a side story novella. It's not important to the main story BUT it is still entertaining. This is my first audible review but I had to make this point to others reading the negative reviews. If you're a fan of Tijan and the Fallen Crest world, then you should definitely read this one. It's a nice little addition after the end of the Fallen Crest story. Now I'm ready to start the Crew series and I can't wait to get through that so I can see them all together in Fallen Crest Campout.

1 person found this helpful

Disappointing

Saskia was spot on per usual with her narrating skills. I liked the general idea of the story. It was a little creepy & the characters were great. The ending was very disappointing & lame. I was also surprised at so much vulgar language in this story. Most of it was not necessary so I found it annoyingly overkill.

1 person found this helpful

A must for all Fallen Crest Fans

Tijan’s Fallen Crest gang are hosting a Halloween party to remember. With a fun plot line and lots of twists and turns, this story was tense and creepy all at the same time. Fun, funny, and haunting whilst still having those wonderful moments with the Kade’s and their friends. It was wonderful catching up with Sam, Mason and the gang, and as usual there’s a lovely Tijan twist to the story. The audio version is great and as usual Saskia Maarleveld narrates Sam to perfection. A must for all Fallen Crest fans.

1 person found this helpful

Quick listen

This is an interesting little listen with good narration. if your a fan of the series you'll enjoy it.

Nice Extra but...

This was nice extra material to the series but did not include anything ekstraspecial situations. I enjoyed nostatte last (bonus?) chapter where Sam and Mason took together down that perv.

As I said, nice ekstra to the friends of this series but not nessesary.

Chilling surprises

Rhis story is out of order with the series it should be the book before fallen crest forever.

Pretty good

I liked it however it has had only half the chapters as the other books in the series

Taylor's death

I was really mad about Taylor dying. She is my favorite person. I want a wedding for her and Logan. please do this. They need a couple more stories!!! No more cheating though.

HORRIBLE

This is a terrible book. Actually, I have no words because I honestly have no idea how it even made it to press. The fact this book was published is laughable. Don't waste your credit or money. If I didn't have to give a star rating. or if there was on for less than zero,that would have been my score.