BOOK REVIEW: The Blondes by Emily Schultz

This is a book review for The Blondes by Emily Schultz. I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. 

Hazel Hayes is a grad student living in New York City. As the novel opens, she learns she is pregnant (from an affair with her married professor) at an apocalyptically bad time: random but deadly attacks on passers-by, all by blonde women, are terrorizing New Yorkers. Soon it becomes clear that the attacks are symptoms of a strange illness that is transforming blondes--whether CEOs, flight attendants, students or accountants--into rabid killers. 

With a premise about a plague that affects blonde women, you would think there would be plenty of excitement. Eh, not so much. I actually spent the majority of the book in a state of boredom. Then something exciting would happen . . . and ten pages later, I was bored again. When the book opens, Hazel is already pregnant (it appears that she is quite late in her pregnancy) and she is alone in a cottage owned by the wife of her baby's father (Grace). The world is being ravaged by the plague and she is doing everything she can to remain isolated so she won't catch it. The narration alternates been Hazel being alone in the cabin and Hazel recounting to her unborn child all of the events that led to her isolation. 

Reading this book, the first thing you have to do is suspend all disbelief with the "Science" that is talked about in this book. I have no clue about Science and even I knew that what was happening was beyond the realm of possibility, as was the explanation. First, it is reported that the disease affects all blonde girls and women (not males, JUST females). Then they state that blonde women just dye their hair so they won't catch it. This makes no sense to me. Then they say women who aren't natural blondes, but who dye their hair blonde, have a chance of catching it. Then they say that even if you dye your hair or shave your head, it doesn't matter. You can catch it. Hazel is a redhead. This should put her in the "safe" category, but not really. From what I understood, the only way for women to be completely safe was to have natural hair as dark as possible. When women are attempting to cross borders, inspectors even have the women drop their pants so they can see if "the carpets match the drapes." This was one of the few times in the book where I was genuinely horrified. Hazel dyes her hair a darker color, but because the inspector asks her to do this, she is put under quarantine. All of this hysteria does strike me as somewhat realistic. There is a disease no one is familiar with so all of these theories get thrown out as quickly as possible by reporters just so they can have a story. This further incites mass hysteria. With women all over the country supposedly being affected by this disease, it would be easy to be scared. I did wonder how many cases were real and how many were just diagnosed because of mass hysteria. At one point, reporters were telling people to be on the lookout for "emotional" or "upset" women. Sorry, but if there is a plague turning blonde women into killers, I'm going to be a bit "emotional." 

I think the reason why I was bored throughout most of this book was that the main character seemed bored with everything too. She showed almost no emotion throughout the entire book and in fact, seemed almost apathetic to what was happening. Even when she was describing her affair with her married professor, there was no emotion there. I didn't even know why she continued with the affair. It didn't seem like she loved him or even knew him very well. The ending of this book was as anticlimactic as everything else. I kept waiting for something to happen. The resolution did not sit well with me. All in all, there was probably one chapter's worth of exciting events in this very boring book.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip this one.