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A review by audreykerr
Aix Marks the Spot by S.E. Anderson
2.0
Edit: After thinking about it I knocked another star off
This was hard to rate because of my dislike of the mc, so 2.5 rated down.
I really enjoyed the setting and reading about Provence. It is an immersive love letter to Provence. It made me want to back there (it's been 12 years?!). I liked the spattering of French throughout the book, most of which is not automatically translated in the next line like many YA books with Spanish in seems to do. I also liked the treasure hunt and past romance aspect of the story (the current time romance seemed quite forced and would have been better as a friendship). I love Valetin, his mother, his friends - I wanted to read more of those scenes! This is probably due to the fact that I could not stand the main character Jamie. I could write a short essay on how awful she is as a person and she does not change but. I didn't like the constant reiteration of "I caused the accident" when it wasn't a part of the plot, it just kept get repeated
Okay, in quick bullet points so I can get this HATE out of my system (really, I started highlighting lines about how awful she was about halfway through).
- she's 17 and acts 14 at times with the melodramatic ~my parents hate me~
- she tried to punch her ex and the only reason she didn't was because she was so drunk she missed. violence isn't okay no matter the gender (:
- after this she decided she was going to drive herself home, the only reason she didn't is because she didn't have her keys. It's a shitty thing to even CONSIDER to do.
- she's so selfish and ungrateful
- she's nearly unbelievably narcissistic, there's a point where another character tries to tell her she doesn't listen and makes everything about her....just for her to prove their point in the next sentence
- she constantly puts down France and French people but gets pissy when people complain about loud Americans because ~I'm also American~~ do you think that about me~~ WAHHH.
- Calling all French people whiny when all she does is whine.
- she seems to have serious anger issues...like she goes from 0 to 100 about nothing at all. It would be understandable if her mother was dying like you are led to believe...but she's learning to walk again, hardly on her deathbed?
- Gets pissed off (see anger issues) when her grandmother wants her to learn French and buys her a dictionary while she just expects her to learn English, hell she expects everyone to try and speak English for her?! You are living there for the summer, at least try?!
- she's so ignorant of French culture despite her dad being French, both her parents being French lit professors, and both her parents reminiscing and telling stories about meeting in France
- I just don't really get why her parents wouldn't have raised her bilingual tbh.
And as a parting note the last letter was weird because
Give me more books set in France/Provence svp!
This was hard to rate because of my dislike of the mc, so 2.5 rated down.
I really enjoyed the setting and reading about Provence. It is an immersive love letter to Provence. It made me want to back there (it's been 12 years?!). I liked the spattering of French throughout the book, most of which is not automatically translated in the next line like many YA books with Spanish in seems to do. I also liked the treasure hunt and past romance aspect of the story (the current time romance seemed quite forced and would have been better as a friendship). I love Valetin, his mother, his friends - I wanted to read more of those scenes! This is probably due to the fact that I could not stand the main character Jamie. I could write a short essay on how awful she is as a person and she does not change but
Spoiler
gets a happy ending?!Spoiler
and then for it to be she got drunk so her parents had to come get her and then got into an accident and not she was drunk driving and hit her mother, or crashed with her mother in the care or whatever?? nahhOkay, in quick bullet points so I can get this HATE out of my system (really, I started highlighting lines about how awful she was about halfway through).
Spoiler
- she's 17 and acts 14 at times with the melodramatic ~my parents hate me~
- she tried to punch her ex and the only reason she didn't was because she was so drunk she missed. violence isn't okay no matter the gender (:
- after this she decided she was going to drive herself home, the only reason she didn't is because she didn't have her keys. It's a shitty thing to even CONSIDER to do.
- she's so selfish and ungrateful
- she's nearly unbelievably narcissistic, there's a point where another character tries to tell her she doesn't listen and makes everything about her....just for her to prove their point in the next sentence
- she constantly puts down France and French people but gets pissy when people complain about loud Americans because ~I'm also American~~ do you think that about me~~ WAHHH.
- Calling all French people whiny when all she does is whine.
- she seems to have serious anger issues...like she goes from 0 to 100 about nothing at all. It would be understandable if her mother was dying like you are led to believe...but she's learning to walk again, hardly on her deathbed?
- Gets pissed off (see anger issues) when her grandmother wants her to learn French and buys her a dictionary while she just expects her to learn English, hell she expects everyone to try and speak English for her?! You are living there for the summer, at least try?!
- she's so ignorant of French culture despite her dad being French, both her parents being French lit professors, and both her parents reminiscing and telling stories about meeting in France
- I just don't really get why her parents wouldn't have raised her bilingual tbh.
And as a parting note the last letter was weird because
Spoiler
after the first letter I assumed it was Jamie's mother who wrote it...I don't know why but weird that my first instinct was correct?Give me more books set in France/Provence svp!