Literary Devices in Hush, Hush
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
ColdwaterHush, Hush uses a damp, foggy northern U.S. small town as the setting for its fantasy. Coldwater is fictional, but nevertheless, the creepy, rainy, gray setting is perfect for other worldl...
Narrator Point of View
From the first line of the first chapter, "I walked into biology and my jaw fell open," we know a first person narrator is running the show, and that this narrator is an active participant in the s...
Genre
This book has a teenage main character who does things most teens do. Okay, most teens aren't stalked by fallen angels and their crazy jealous exes, but the other things going on in the book are ty...
Tone
Sarcastic and Spunky When Nora describes her new bio partner, Patch, to Dorothea, she says, "He's tall, dark, and annoying" (2.10), a sarcastic variation on the expression, "tall, dark, and handsom...
Writing Style
Contemporary and legendary might seem like opposites, the first indicating a modern-day feel and the second suggesting a timeless, old-world flare. So how can a text incorporate both? Fitzpatrick d...
What's Up With the Title?
Are you thinking Hush, Hush has nothing to do with the book? After all, the phrase never actually makes an appearance in the book, and it's not like any of the characters run around telling people...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
…God spared not the angles that sinned, / but cast them down to hell / and delivered them into chains of darkness / to be reserved unto judgement… (2 Peter 2:4)The epigraph comes from 2 Peter,...
What's Up With the Ending?
The book ends with some pretty steamy kissing: He grinned when I didn't protest, and lowered his mouth toward mine. The first touch was just that—a touch. A teasing, tempting softness. I licked m...
Tough-o-Meter
Overall, this book is super accessible to the 21st-century YA audience. The dialogue and settings are contemporary. People have cell phones and computers, and the characters speak like real teens d...
Plot Analysis
Welcome to the Wonderful Worlds of Fallen Angels and Sex EdWhenever there's a prologue, like there is with this book, there are usually two starting points: the one laid out in the prologue and the...
Trivia
Bloggers have called Fitzpatrick out for using bio class as the setting for Patch and Nora's first meeting because that's a move Stephenie Meyer already made in Twilight. Turns out, Fitzpatrick was...
Steaminess Rating
Hush, Hush is a romance, and not the kind with sappy poems and boxes of chocolates, but the kind with plenty of carnal chemistry. Sex is on tap from page one when Nora walks into bio lab to find...
Allusions
Dracula (4.33)Geoffrey Chaucer (4.75)Pippi Longstocking (10.75)Wicked Witch of the West (10.75)Othello (11.61)Cheshire cat (15.26)Hamlet (17.1)Shakespeare (27.43)Jeopardy (3.78)ESPN (6.61)Oompa-Loo...