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A review by ashleylm
My Diary from the Edge of the World by Jodi Lynn Anderson
4.0
Good book, it moved quickly and moved me (see what I did there!) Can't quite bring myself to give it 5 stars as I wished it had more of an unfolding structure where each moment builds on and connects to the ones before (like a bud blossoms to a flower, then fruits) whereas instead it felt very episodic, where you could essentially skip almost any chapter in the large middle section, and it would have no bearing on the book as a whole.
Also, many of the problems encountered by our protagonists were solved by either (a) running away, in some form, or (b) deus ex machina, really, or (c) some combination of both. These are generally my least favourite solutions.
I agree with the quibble that the world building makes no sense, one has to simply accept it (the world is So Very Different from ours that there's no chance in the world, unless you have to accept that every world is possible, that the similarities would be so similar. Normally this sort of similar but different world is dealt with by having a definitive splitting off point (e.g. Nazis win the war), but not here, it's just vastly different in many ways, yet there are R.V.s, Taco Bells, Vegas, etc. Not a chance.
But the narrative voice is charming, the author mostly made the diary form work (I've read books where a narrator-diarist manages to churn our 30 pages of text during a 2 minute attack, say, rather than that night or the next day), and it's well worth reading. Because the episodes and chapters are so short, this was my "waiting for the Nespresso" book.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
Also, many of the problems encountered by our protagonists were solved by either (a) running away, in some form, or (b) deus ex machina, really, or (c) some combination of both. These are generally my least favourite solutions.
I agree with the quibble that the world building makes no sense, one has to simply accept it (the world is So Very Different from ours that there's no chance in the world, unless you have to accept that every world is possible, that the similarities would be so similar. Normally this sort of similar but different world is dealt with by having a definitive splitting off point (e.g. Nazis win the war), but not here, it's just vastly different in many ways, yet there are R.V.s, Taco Bells, Vegas, etc. Not a chance.
But the narrative voice is charming, the author mostly made the diary form work (I've read books where a narrator-diarist manages to churn our 30 pages of text during a 2 minute attack, say, rather than that night or the next day), and it's well worth reading. Because the episodes and chapters are so short, this was my "waiting for the Nespresso" book.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!