Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick
Published 2009 · 80,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Coming-of-Age, Fantasy, Romance
How hard is Hush, Hush to read?
Hush, Hush scores 18 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 20 out of 100
- Standard YA vocabulary. Angel mythology terms are introduced naturally. Accessible throughout.
- Sentence structure: 18 out of 100
- Abstraction: 18 out of 100
- Action-driven and emotionally immediate. The angel mythology is plot machinery rather than philosophical exploration.
- Information density: 20 out of 100
- Lean storytelling focused on suspense and romance. World-building is minimal, revealed through action.
- Narrative indirection: 18 out of 100
- Straightforward first-person mystery-romance. Nora discovers the truth as the reader does. No structural tricks.
- Symbolic density: 22 out of 100
- Wings as freedom and loss. The biology assignment as forced intimacy. Delphic Amusement Park as danger cloaked in fun. Light symbolic layering.
- Ironic distance: 100 out of 100
- Sincere and intense. The romance is played straight with no satirical distance.
- Resolution withholding: 25 out of 100
- The immediate threat resolves but the series arc -- Patch's quest for humanity, the Nephilim conflict -- continues.
- Structural complexity: 16 out of 100
- Linear first-person narrative. Mystery-thriller structure with romantic beats. Simple and effective.
How Hush, Hush is regarded
Hush, Hush holds a literary regard score of 34 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.