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A review by lalaskal
Serafina and the Twisted Staff by Robert Beatty
2.0
I'm conflicted with this series.
On one hand, it's intriguing once it gets started, but it takes about 135 pages for the real story to sink in. Both The Black Cloak and this one started with a very boring introduction of Serafina roaming around to catch rats. The details going into the rat catching scenes were painstakingly dull. I didn't care. There wasn't a need to start the second book like the first because it distances the reader from the story by spitting out a fact that we already learned repeatedly in the first book.
The biggest issue I have is the dialect and its inconsistency. Serafina, her father, and the other lowly maids and butlers don't speak proper English. They speak horrible Southern mountain talk. Improper speech is a HUGE annoyance of mine. Yes, I'm aware that people have the right to speak the way they want, but despite growing up an hour and forty-five minutes away from Biltmore, I refused to follow my elementary peers and teachers and acquire the typical Southern dialect and vocabulary. First off, I couldn't understand it. Second, I wanted to speak properly and had no desire to hinder my vocabulary to fit in. Improper word structures are the equivalent to nails on a chalkboard for me. They always have been and always will.
In The Black Cloak, at least I could understand the dialogue between Serafina and whoever she interacted with. I couldn't in The Twisted Staff. I didn't even try to understand what was happening because I refused to waste my time translating the vocabulary. Robert Beatty made the language so much more stilted that it detached me from the story because it was difficult to comprehend what was going on.
Going along with the ghastly dialect, the story is from Serafina's point of view but in third person. I understand how her father is poor and not educated. That he raised Serafina and hid her away from everyone and she learned to speak from him. I get that. But what makes absolutely no sense is how she switches dialects when talking to her father, when talking to Braeden et. family, and when describing the story. It wasn't consistent and it should have been. You can't go from cringe worthy mountain talk to suddenly eloquent, whimsical descriptions regarding the Winter Room. If Beatty wanted to show how these people spoke then he should have kept Serafina's language consistent for the whole story and not have her talking proper English when she begins thinking and describing her surroundings. No, not all of her descriptions and interactions with Braeden et. family were perfect English since she usually slipped in a twangy word here and there, but that I could remove. You can't remove pages of incoherent dialogue.
I have a feeling Beatty didn't write everything in Southern dialect because then no one would understand what was going on. But the lack of consistency made the story weaker. This isn't necessarily a complaint because I rejoiced every time I understand Serafina. The story flowed perfectly! But then it hit a brick wall when she interacted with her dad or Essie, and at first I spent too much time reconstructing sentences in my head as I read this book just for it to try to make sense. If anything, Beatty should have included footnotes on each page with translations. That would have made reading this easier.
On to Serafina. She reads like an eight or nine year old instead of twelve. One can say it's because she's never interacted with kids her age. It makes sense. But she liked to make dumb decisions and ignore the obvious clues in front of her. And she described everything so much that it took away from what was going on. Like in the middle of her getting attacked, she would suddenly pause the attack (in her head) and her mind would wander to other things and then fall back down to Earth a few paragraphs or pages later. I hate it when books do this.
For the first ~150 pages, besides the never-ending rat catching descriptions and the shuddering dialect, nothing happened except Serafina being chased and attacked by animals multiple times. She somehow survived numerous dog, wolf, and coyote bites without needing stitches or wound care despite all the skin flapping off her. My mom was bitten by a dog once and it was quite nasty. Maybe Serafina's body heals wounds quickly because she's part mountain lion and panther? But without confirmation, it's another flaw in the story.
Once the story started, like with The Black Cloak, everything was entertaining and kept my interest. The dialects magically vanished and the plot inched forward. Waysa was amazing and I hope to read more about him in the next installments. Why am I reading the next installments? Because I own all the books in the series. If I didn't then I would have labeled The Black Cloak as 'did not finish' solely because of the dialect.
Well, on to the next I guess.
On one hand, it's intriguing once it gets started, but it takes about 135 pages for the real story to sink in. Both The Black Cloak and this one started with a very boring introduction of Serafina roaming around to catch rats. The details going into the rat catching scenes were painstakingly dull. I didn't care. There wasn't a need to start the second book like the first because it distances the reader from the story by spitting out a fact that we already learned repeatedly in the first book.
The biggest issue I have is the dialect and its inconsistency. Serafina, her father, and the other lowly maids and butlers don't speak proper English. They speak horrible Southern mountain talk. Improper speech is a HUGE annoyance of mine. Yes, I'm aware that people have the right to speak the way they want, but despite growing up an hour and forty-five minutes away from Biltmore, I refused to follow my elementary peers and teachers and acquire the typical Southern dialect and vocabulary. First off, I couldn't understand it. Second, I wanted to speak properly and had no desire to hinder my vocabulary to fit in. Improper word structures are the equivalent to nails on a chalkboard for me. They always have been and always will.
In The Black Cloak, at least I could understand the dialogue between Serafina and whoever she interacted with. I couldn't in The Twisted Staff. I didn't even try to understand what was happening because I refused to waste my time translating the vocabulary. Robert Beatty made the language so much more stilted that it detached me from the story because it was difficult to comprehend what was going on.
Going along with the ghastly dialect, the story is from Serafina's point of view but in third person. I understand how her father is poor and not educated. That he raised Serafina and hid her away from everyone and she learned to speak from him. I get that. But what makes absolutely no sense is how she switches dialects when talking to her father, when talking to Braeden et. family, and when describing the story. It wasn't consistent and it should have been. You can't go from cringe worthy mountain talk to suddenly eloquent, whimsical descriptions regarding the Winter Room. If Beatty wanted to show how these people spoke then he should have kept Serafina's language consistent for the whole story and not have her talking proper English when she begins thinking and describing her surroundings. No, not all of her descriptions and interactions with Braeden et. family were perfect English since she usually slipped in a twangy word here and there, but that I could remove. You can't remove pages of incoherent dialogue.
I have a feeling Beatty didn't write everything in Southern dialect because then no one would understand what was going on. But the lack of consistency made the story weaker. This isn't necessarily a complaint because I rejoiced every time I understand Serafina. The story flowed perfectly! But then it hit a brick wall when she interacted with her dad or Essie, and at first I spent too much time reconstructing sentences in my head as I read this book just for it to try to make sense. If anything, Beatty should have included footnotes on each page with translations. That would have made reading this easier.
On to Serafina. She reads like an eight or nine year old instead of twelve. One can say it's because she's never interacted with kids her age. It makes sense. But she liked to make dumb decisions and ignore the obvious clues in front of her. And she described everything so much that it took away from what was going on. Like in the middle of her getting attacked, she would suddenly pause the attack (in her head) and her mind would wander to other things and then fall back down to Earth a few paragraphs or pages later. I hate it when books do this.
For the first ~150 pages, besides the never-ending rat catching descriptions and the shuddering dialect, nothing happened except Serafina being chased and attacked by animals multiple times. She somehow survived numerous dog, wolf, and coyote bites without needing stitches or wound care despite all the skin flapping off her. My mom was bitten by a dog once and it was quite nasty. Maybe Serafina's body heals wounds quickly because she's part mountain lion and panther? But without confirmation, it's another flaw in the story.
Once the story started, like with The Black Cloak, everything was entertaining and kept my interest. The dialects magically vanished and the plot inched forward. Waysa was amazing and I hope to read more about him in the next installments. Why am I reading the next installments? Because I own all the books in the series. If I didn't then I would have labeled The Black Cloak as 'did not finish' solely because of the dialect.
Well, on to the next I guess.