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A review by rapunzelrewritten
Beautiful To Me: A Little Mermaid Retelling by E.L. Tenenbaum
3.0
Why 3 stars? Setting and imagery were wonderful (+1) and the ocean was felt. Starting and ending of character development was perfect for the premise, twisting the Hans Christian Anderson version and Disney together well (+1). Much of the writing was beautiful and held important themes for all women and especially young girls to hear (+1) [yes, this is chaste enough for young girls].
Why not 4 or 5 stars? Although lovely, the repetition started to annoy me of certain almost identical statements throughout the book. After saying a moral, lesson, or critical theme two or three times, it should be left to the reader to derive. We can figure it out ourselves at that point and I found myself thinking several times, /would you please get on with it? I read that, I understand, move along now/ Waiting for the story to be over is never a good sign, no matter how many windswept waves and magical songs there are (-1).
Also, the middle portion of character development during A’s time at the castle before Sienna—- would really have been more convincing in my opinion if A had nudged, dragged, or otherwise showcased Sienna more than the one dance number. If the goal was to get prince’s attention, she could have taught her —-friend to communicate in other ways and helped them forge a bond instead of wasting time trying to get her to —-. Self image issues aside, there has to be an unconscious (or is it subconscious?) desire to finally be the one noticed, despite explicit statements to the contrary. We former wallflowers all have our passive-aggressive ways, don’t kid yourself (-0.5).
Lastly, I disagreed that this should have been told from the future like a memory. Sometimes that works, but I didn’t need the /and ever since then/ portions liberally sprinkled throughout the already slowly meandering tale. Leave me in some suspense. It’s a retelling of a classic, and the most suspenseful element is your twist on what happened and what happens next from moment to moment. Going back and forth and giving me pieces of what should have been the epilogue just spoiled the fun a bit. As an example of how this backfired, on page 42-43 the author made a poor choice in not having one character actually be there for another character’s pivotal decision. We learn about a whole sequence of dialogue and actions as imaginative hearsay. I almost stopped reading; having the event told with “probably”, “surely” and “undoubtedly” was a big red flag that came perilously close to ruining the author-reader trust relationship (-0.5).
Recap:
+1 setting and imagery
+1 Beautiful writing and meaningful themes
+1 some strong character development and premise
Remaining 2 potential stars:
1 not given for redundancy
0.5 not given for middle character development
0.5 not given for inefficient choice or use of perspective, strong disagreement with author’s craft in one instance
Why not 4 or 5 stars? Although lovely, the repetition started to annoy me of certain almost identical statements throughout the book. After saying a moral, lesson, or critical theme two or three times, it should be left to the reader to derive. We can figure it out ourselves at that point and I found myself thinking several times, /would you please get on with it? I read that, I understand, move along now/ Waiting for the story to be over is never a good sign, no matter how many windswept waves and magical songs there are (-1).
Also, the middle portion of character development during A’s time at the castle before Sienna—- would really have been more convincing in my opinion if A had nudged, dragged, or otherwise showcased Sienna more than the one dance number. If the goal was to get prince’s attention, she could have taught her —-friend to communicate in other ways and helped them forge a bond instead of wasting time trying to get her to —-. Self image issues aside, there has to be an unconscious (or is it subconscious?) desire to finally be the one noticed, despite explicit statements to the contrary. We former wallflowers all have our passive-aggressive ways, don’t kid yourself (-0.5).
Lastly, I disagreed that this should have been told from the future like a memory. Sometimes that works, but I didn’t need the /and ever since then/ portions liberally sprinkled throughout the already slowly meandering tale. Leave me in some suspense. It’s a retelling of a classic, and the most suspenseful element is your twist on what happened and what happens next from moment to moment. Going back and forth and giving me pieces of what should have been the epilogue just spoiled the fun a bit. As an example of how this backfired, on page 42-43 the author made a poor choice in not having one character actually be there for another character’s pivotal decision. We learn about a whole sequence of dialogue and actions as imaginative hearsay. I almost stopped reading; having the event told with “probably”, “surely” and “undoubtedly” was a big red flag that came perilously close to ruining the author-reader trust relationship (-0.5).
Recap:
+1 setting and imagery
+1 Beautiful writing and meaningful themes
+1 some strong character development and premise
Remaining 2 potential stars:
1 not given for redundancy
0.5 not given for middle character development
0.5 not given for inefficient choice or use of perspective, strong disagreement with author’s craft in one instance