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A review by annettebooksofhopeanddreams
D: A Tale of Two Worlds by Michel Faber, Brett Helquist
3.0
When I got this book I was quite sure that this was one of the prettiest and most beautiful books I had ever seen and since it seemed to be quite a fairytale I was quite excited to get started. However, since this is a Book Box Club book I had to wait patiently until it was time for our buddy read to get started. Since the author chat with the previous author was last week however, this week we could finally open the book and see if the story was as beautiful as its cover.
And now I've finished this book I'm not entirely sure what to think of it. This story should have been my thing. I'm a huge lover of Alice in Wonderland. I love middle grades. I love fantasy worlds and weirdness. But somehow this story never really grabbed me. I was reading it, I was making progress and I wasn't hating it or disliking it, but I was not really looking forward to picking it back up and I wasn't really enjoying it either.
I just can't really say why. Something was missing. Something that I had expected to be there. I think partly it might be magic. Although our heroine was in a lot of weird situations, none of them really seemed enchanting or magical. I actually think that only two things really were magical. Another thing that might not have helped, is that it somehow seems like our heroine is on an important journey to save the world, but it feels like eventually she's not really doing much. It's very much simply some sort of luck that everything works out?
I'm also asking myself, what kind of person is our main heroine actually? And I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure? She seems kind, she's young (only 13, which also didn't help because I was expecting a YA when I started, my fault) and there are moments she seems highly intelligent, coming with quite nice solutions for her issues and problems. But I never really connected with her and I also had some trouble really caring about her.
I guess that it's a case of me being the wrong reader for this book?
And now I've finished this book I'm not entirely sure what to think of it. This story should have been my thing. I'm a huge lover of Alice in Wonderland. I love middle grades. I love fantasy worlds and weirdness. But somehow this story never really grabbed me. I was reading it, I was making progress and I wasn't hating it or disliking it, but I was not really looking forward to picking it back up and I wasn't really enjoying it either.
I just can't really say why. Something was missing. Something that I had expected to be there. I think partly it might be magic. Although our heroine was in a lot of weird situations, none of them really seemed enchanting or magical. I actually think that only two things really were magical. Another thing that might not have helped, is that it somehow seems like our heroine is on an important journey to save the world, but it feels like eventually she's not really doing much. It's very much simply some sort of luck that everything works out?
I'm also asking myself, what kind of person is our main heroine actually? And I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure? She seems kind, she's young (only 13, which also didn't help because I was expecting a YA when I started, my fault) and there are moments she seems highly intelligent, coming with quite nice solutions for her issues and problems. But I never really connected with her and I also had some trouble really caring about her.
I guess that it's a case of me being the wrong reader for this book?