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hollyempey 's review for:
The Tenth Girl
by Sara Faring
Well, this was certainly... something. That was one heck of a "twist." Less of a twist, and more of a genre shift. A story within a story, if you will.
I couldn't help but feel frustrated during the first 80% of the book. Things feel so vague, they could have been flushed out so much more. Why does it feel like there's no progress being made? Why do the characters seem so one dimensional (and those names? Magically correlating with their appearances? How unsubtle)? Why does this feel like it's going in circles? Why does the motivations for Carmela bringing them to the Vacarro School feel so lame? Why are the "twists" so underwhelming?
Turns out, there is one very big answer to all of this.
I feel like the two genres of the two different levels of the story don't really overlap much. Like, the people who are going to pick up a book about a haunted boarding school in the 1970's and Argentine myths, aren't the same people who would be stoked to read a book about the real concept of the book.
Was the concept interesting? Yes. Had I read anything like it before? No. But, would I be interested in reading something like this again? No, probably not. I like haunted houses and historical pieces and foreign folklore. Not so much the other stuff.
I couldn't help but feel frustrated during the first 80% of the book. Things feel so vague, they could have been flushed out so much more. Why does it feel like there's no progress being made? Why do the characters seem so one dimensional (and those names? Magically correlating with their appearances? How unsubtle)? Why does this feel like it's going in circles? Why does the motivations for Carmela bringing them to the Vacarro School feel so lame? Why are the "twists" so underwhelming?
Turns out, there is one very big answer to all of this.
I feel like the two genres of the two different levels of the story don't really overlap much. Like, the people who are going to pick up a book about a haunted boarding school in the 1970's and Argentine myths, aren't the same people who would be stoked to read a book about the real concept of the book.
Was the concept interesting? Yes. Had I read anything like it before? No. But, would I be interested in reading something like this again? No, probably not. I like haunted houses and historical pieces and foreign folklore. Not so much the other stuff.