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serrendipity 's review for:
Never, Never
by Serena Valentino
*sigh*
I thought I was done with these, but after this one, there are 2 more books in the series to read, including one centering around Gaston. (Which...I always thought it was an odd choice that Valentino focused on the Beast for the BatB villain book and not Gaston, but I guess we got there in the end.)
And yes, I'll be reading them, even though I'm not sure why...I think I'm hoping for them to get better, or make more sense...but no. This was just more of the same.
Well, to be fair. The first 100 pages or so were *fine,* but then we had to go and shoehorn the Odd Sisters and Circe in again.
(And by fine, I mean it was a weird mashup of Barrie's Peter Pan (with the babies falling out of prams), Our Flag Means Death (gentleman abandons wealthy life to become a pirate) and Pirates of the Caribbean (Blackbeard...but with Daddy issues?)
The biggest issue in these first 100 pages (aside from everything else that bothers me about Valentino's writing) was that...they weren't pirates? Like, yes, they fought a Kraken and had a sea battle, but everybody was so polite and not piratey? For goodness sakes, when Hook shows up to get a cake for the Odd Sisters, he offers to pay them money! Like, SIR. A pirate would break the glass, take a cake, and LEAVE. Especially someone who was trained under Blackbeard, the most fearsome pirates on the seas.
Aside from that, the same things are here (from my review of the 8th book):
But in the end, this book was basically the same as all the other ones:
✖️-- PassiveFemale Male MC
Hook was fated to be a villain, so he is. That's it. That's the "real story behind Hook's villainy." It was written in the Book of Fairy Stories, so he's a villain. Which...UGH. Yes, he's a fairy-tale villain --we know that already. It being "fated" to be so isn't a compelling reason.
✖️ -- Still Telling, not Showing.
Check. It would have been more compelling to show James' time in Neverland as a child, even though it'd be hard to narrate a story from the POV of a 5 year old, but whatever. That's the least of the issues here.
✖️ -- Mother Issues. Every. Single. One. of these books is basically some twisted version of effed-up mother/daughter relationships.
Not quite "mother" issues, but we are STILL playing out the Circe/Odd sisters relationship, and Blackbeard -- feared pirate Blackbeard! -- wants a son, so close enough.
Also, James just wants friends, and apparently he couldn't find those in the real world so the only option is to go back to Never Land even though he can't really remember his time there or that Peter doesn't like grown-ups. So.
✖️ -- Nothing happens for 90% of the book.
Check. Maybe a bit less in this book, since there are events "outside" of the Odd Sisters / Many Kingdoms narrative, but again, most of the key plot events happen off-page and then the entire story comes crashing to a halt in the last 30 pages.
✖️ -- Finally, a little bit of planning goes a long way. I just feel like at this point we're shoe-horning villains into the stories of the Odd Sisters and adjusting things to make sense. Case in point:
"James...was raised in London, a rather mundane non-magical realm where he was son to a grand lord and lady, well before the time of Lady Tremaine and Cruella de Vil, but not so dissimiliar from their own upbringings. You will notice that the last three entries in this Book of Fairy Tales have worked their way back in time rather than moving forward, but as you will soon learn, time means nothing in the magical realms..."
That, to me, is just a cop-out for the sequence, and can be used to explain away some (of the many) plot holes and inconsistencies. "Time means nothing" basically means "don't pay attention to it" and I don't like or appreciate that as a reader.
On to the Hades one...
I thought I was done with these, but after this one, there are 2 more books in the series to read, including one centering around Gaston. (Which...I always thought it was an odd choice that Valentino focused on the Beast for the BatB villain book and not Gaston, but I guess we got there in the end.)
And yes, I'll be reading them, even though I'm not sure why...I think I'm hoping for them to get better, or make more sense...but no. This was just more of the same.
Well, to be fair. The first 100 pages or so were *fine,* but then we had to go and shoehorn the Odd Sisters and Circe in again.
(And by fine, I mean it was a weird mashup of Barrie's Peter Pan (with the babies falling out of prams), Our Flag Means Death (gentleman abandons wealthy life to become a pirate) and Pirates of the Caribbean (Blackbeard...but with Daddy issues?)
The biggest issue in these first 100 pages (aside from everything else that bothers me about Valentino's writing) was that...they weren't pirates? Like, yes, they fought a Kraken and had a sea battle, but everybody was so polite and not piratey? For goodness sakes, when Hook shows up to get a cake for the Odd Sisters, he offers to pay them money! Like, SIR. A pirate would break the glass, take a cake, and LEAVE. Especially someone who was trained under Blackbeard, the most fearsome pirates on the seas.
Aside from that, the same things are here (from my review of the 8th book):
But in the end, this book was basically the same as all the other ones:
✖️-- Passive
Hook was fated to be a villain, so he is. That's it. That's the "real story behind Hook's villainy." It was written in the Book of Fairy Stories, so he's a villain. Which...UGH. Yes, he's a fairy-tale villain --we know that already. It being "fated" to be so isn't a compelling reason.
✖️ -- Still Telling, not Showing.
Check. It would have been more compelling to show James' time in Neverland as a child, even though it'd be hard to narrate a story from the POV of a 5 year old, but whatever. That's the least of the issues here.
✖️ -- Mother Issues. Every. Single. One. of these books is basically some twisted version of effed-up mother/daughter relationships.
Not quite "mother" issues, but we are STILL playing out the Circe/Odd sisters relationship, and Blackbeard -- feared pirate Blackbeard! -- wants a son, so close enough.
Also, James just wants friends, and apparently he couldn't find those in the real world so the only option is to go back to Never Land even though he can't really remember his time there or that Peter doesn't like grown-ups. So.
✖️ -- Nothing happens for 90% of the book.
Check. Maybe a bit less in this book, since there are events "outside" of the Odd Sisters / Many Kingdoms narrative, but again, most of the key plot events happen off-page and then the entire story comes crashing to a halt in the last 30 pages.
✖️ -- Finally, a little bit of planning goes a long way. I just feel like at this point we're shoe-horning villains into the stories of the Odd Sisters and adjusting things to make sense. Case in point:
"James...was raised in London, a rather mundane non-magical realm where he was son to a grand lord and lady, well before the time of Lady Tremaine and Cruella de Vil, but not so dissimiliar from their own upbringings. You will notice that the last three entries in this Book of Fairy Tales have worked their way back in time rather than moving forward, but as you will soon learn, time means nothing in the magical realms..."
That, to me, is just a cop-out for the sequence, and can be used to explain away some (of the many) plot holes and inconsistencies. "Time means nothing" basically means "don't pay attention to it" and I don't like or appreciate that as a reader.
On to the Hades one...