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bittersweetsorrows 's review for:
Flunked
by Jen Calonita
I really wanted to like this book. A reform school run by villains that mashed together popular fairy tales sounds like an awesome idea. The execution of that idea is what really killed it.
The characters are underdeveloped at best, inconsistent at worse. Most of the characters end up coming off as flat archetypes rather than nuanced people. The plot itself feels more like short stories or vignettes strung together than a single story. Much of the action happens “off stage” between chapters so the reader misses a lot of character development. The writing style is very choppy. The dialogue especially sounds like the characters are being fed lines by someone else.
I understand that some of the simplicity in characterization and plot comes from the fact that this is a middle grades read. However, there are other books in this reading level and genre that develop character and plot in a nuanced way (Tuesday’s at the Castle, Ella Enchanted, or even Ever After High for example).
The characters are underdeveloped at best, inconsistent at worse. Most of the characters end up coming off as flat archetypes rather than nuanced people. The plot itself feels more like short stories or vignettes strung together than a single story. Much of the action happens “off stage” between chapters so the reader misses a lot of character development. The writing style is very choppy. The dialogue especially sounds like the characters are being fed lines by someone else.
I understand that some of the simplicity in characterization and plot comes from the fact that this is a middle grades read. However, there are other books in this reading level and genre that develop character and plot in a nuanced way (Tuesday’s at the Castle, Ella Enchanted, or even Ever After High for example).