I have had this book to read for awhile now. Previous to this I read Dawson’s Blud series (which I liked) and her other YA book, Servants of the Storm (which I loved). This book is really unlike any of her previous stories; it is more of an action thriller and doesn’t have any supernatural or fantasy elements to it. The 2nd book is called Stike and is already out; I believe this is planned to be a trilogy.

The premise of this book is a bit hard to swallow. Basically a bank buys out the government and makes everyone’s loans due immediately. You get two options: pay off the loan or become an assassin for the credit company and hunt down other loan owners. While unrealistic and a hard to find believable, it ends up being kind of an interesting idea. I love how this change in order quickly tumbles society into chaos.

Despite the fact that I found the premise to be fairly unbelievable, this ended up being a fast-paced and engaging read. Each chapter is named after the person Patsy has to hunt down next and you can’t help but be pulled into each person’s story as you wonder what they owe money for and if they will chose to live or die.

Of course there is a larger story that ties the whole book together as Patsy tries to figure out who and what is behind Valor National Bank. This larger story combined with the smaller stories of the people Patsy hunts and made this a book that was impossible for me to put down.

I also love how this book explored how different people react to this incredibly improbable situation; it’s very intriguing from a psychological point of view and I was surprised at how much this book made me consider our society as a whole.

Overall I enjoyed it and will probably read the next book in the series just because I am incredibly curious to see what happens. I would recommend to those who enjoy action-packed thrillers that have a bit of a dystopian twist to them. ( )

Did you ever read a book that you were so psyched about that you read it super fast and when you finished it you couldn’t figure out why? That’s me now. When I was speed reading through Hit I couldn’t wait to read more. And yet, by the last page I was puzzled by the characters, the plot, and the vision Dawson had for Hit.

nothing about hit was believable

As you can tell from my most recent book review, I am loving the YA thrillers recently… Except for this one. When I first saw that Hit was available, I quickly snatched it up and was eager to enjoy. It finally came in the mail and I found myself speed reading through it. I think I was so excited by the concept of Hit that I missed how just okay it all was, not to mention how dumb it is for a business that makes money off debt owners to then kill them when they can’t pay up. I mean, even loan sharks know you can’t make money off dead people. I understand knocking them around and/or torturing them to get what they want (I’m not saying this is a good thing), but it just doesn’t seem like good business practice to me. But what do I know about banking?

I am beyond baffled by the romance

Wyatt is the son of Patsy’s first mark and the brother of the last victim on the list. He is fully aware that Patsy is the murderer, because he saw it happen. He knows she can’t just not do it, because she is being blackmailed. I especially have a hard time following his plan to tag along for the ride and help her knock off more victims? Even the semi-predictable plot twist at the end doesn’t fully help to back up his actions.

“Knock, knock,” I say.

Wyatt looks at me sideways, like I’m crazy. “Who’s there?”

“Lilac.”

He grins.

“Lilac who?

“Lilac you.”

AND THEN HE WINDS UP INTERESTED IN HER… ROMANTICALLY. Is anyone else a little uncomfortable that Wyatt is attracted to a girl who he saw murder his father? Because I am. Very much so.

At least one thing he says makes sense:

“You can’t change the past so you might as well live in the present. And if you don’t like the present, make a different future.

At least that stopped Patsy from whining about her fate every time she killed someone. I get it, your life sucks and you kill people. Can you at least stop complaining in front of the guy whose dad you killed to save your own skin?

okay I am baffled by everything

Seriously, what is going on here?! You’ve got a bank killing off people left and right when it could be making money, main characters that possibly need psychiatric help, and a reader who can’t figure out what she just read. All-in-all, I don’t think I can recommend Hit to anyone. At least I knocked another book off the TBR…right? ( )

Near future thriller about a teen forced to become an indentured assassin who has only three days to complete her hit list--with the added complication of her sole ally's brother being the final assignment. ( )

Characters were shallow and stereotypical. Nothing new or inventive at all. No likable people and wooden emotion. Not what I was expecting from reading some of the reviews. Some glaring editing issues as well. Not reading the sequel. ( )

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Before I get into this, I want to be totally clear about the fact that it wasn’t Hit‘s blurb that made me curious; it was Delilah S. Dawson. I follow her on Twitter and love reading her blog posts. She’s incredible funny, laugh until tears are leaking from my eyes and can’t breathe funny. With how much I love all of the things I’ve read by her online, I figured that Hit couldn’t possibly miss, but, once again, I’ve been proven wrong.



The concept of Hit is a fun and compelling one. Dawson draws on some of the most troublesome aspects of American society: credit card debt, the economy, and the omnipresent terms and conditions no one ever reads. The premise is that Valor National, a bank, becomes influential and wealthy enough to pay off the national debt and become the government. Valor National then takes advantage of some scary agreements they hid in the terms and conditions of their credit card contracts: if the card owners default on their payments, Valor National can call the debt in, requiring the card holder to either pay the debt in full, become a bounty hunter for them for a few days, or die. Teen Patsy has to present ten people with these options, killing them if they don’t pay up or volunteer to do what she’s doing, or both she and her mom will be killed. The whole thing is absurd but also ridiculously possible; the concept ought to be the foundation for a delicious satire.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get satiric vibes from Hit. Everything’s told in a very realistic, gritty way. It’s more action/thriller/conspiracy/romance than commentary on the American way of life. There are elements of social commentary, of course, but I feel like that message gets muddied along the way. A satire should have a dark comedy underlying it that I really did not find here. There are some attempts at comedy, but they fell almost entirely flat for me, perhaps because so much of it consisted of odd southernisms. In fact, though most of her writing was descriptive and no-nonsense, but sometimes the metaphors and phrases didn’t make any sense to me.

It’s like when they say a goose walked over your grave, but this was one big effing goose.

Is this a thing? Hit is set in Georgia, which is where I live, and I’ve never heard this. Admittedly, I’m in Atlanta, which isn’t much like the rest of Georgia, but, based on my googling, it doesn’t seem like the most common phrase.

Somewhere, deep behind my ribs, in a place I didn’t know existed, my heart opens up like one of those blooming tea bags, the ones that start out tiny and dark and then blossom like a flower.

Her heart is a tea bag? Before she gets rid of her mom’s credit card debt by killing ten of Valor National’s creditors, maybe she should consult a physician, because that’s not healthy.

“That thing’s tech is tighter than a turtle’s butt.”

Ew. Also, I have no idea how tight turtle butts are, so this means nothing to me. Nor do I want to know. Nope nope nopeity nope.

“Shit on a biscuit.”

You’re already swearing, Patsy. No need to try to make it cutesy, bless your heart.

Hit‘s incredibly long chapters, one per debtor, also slowed me down. Some were fifty plus pages long, and it’s really hard for me to sustain my mental interest for that long a duration. I do think that Dawson does a great job with the realism aspects. Patsy’s not model beautiful; she has zits and awkward clothing. There’s a fantastic awkward boner scene at the most inopportune of moments. When Patsy has to kill people, it’s not pretty; it’s bloody and gross, mentioning bodily fluids leaking from the corpse.

The romance proved quite frustrating. Patsy’s first kill is Wyatt’s father. He confronts her and, because of reasons, they end up working as a team of sorts for the rest of the kills. They’re attracted to each other despite the circumstances and somewhat because of the increased tension and fear. Their connection’s pretty superficial, based mostly upon the fact that they’re willing to kill people and have similar musical taste, but I sort of get that. However, they only spend a couple of days together and they met when she KILLED HIS FATHER. Some ill-advised action, I can understand, but lovey feelings? FUCK NO. They keep getting mad at one another for not being trusting enough, but why the fuck would they trust each other? FUCKING WHY? Not to mention the bomb dropped by Amber: Patsy’s father was her mom’s boss. Amber also says that they might be cousins. All I know is that Wyatt’s dad was the Vice President “who fired her mom from her nicer office job downtown.” If I’m understanding this right, there’s potential incest. I mean, I’m sure it’s not, since the mom’s likely had a bunch of jobs where she worked for wealthy men and Patsy’s apparently related to Ashley Cannon and Amber (and there’s no indication they’re related to the Beards), but it still really bothers me that the possibility never even occurs to her.



Then, after all of that, I’m incredibly curious to find out how Hit will wrap up, hoping that the conclusion will bring everything together and make the novel make some sort of sense to me. I was getting worried, because some pretty serious plot threads were not wrapping up, like, say, her parentage. BAM. Plot threads dangling because this is a fucking surprise series starter. I was able to confirm book two by looking at the author’s twitter feed, so that’s definitely happening. Be warned: SERIES.



I will not be back to find out what happens next in Patsy Klein’s life. Hit very much missed the mark with me, lacking the humor I hoped for and just leaving me puzzled and unsettled. ( )