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smart_girls_love_trashy_books 's review for:
The Executioner's Daughter
by Jane Hardstaff
-POTENTIAL SPOILERS-
I was surprised when I saw all the hate for this book! While it's not the greatest book I've read, I don't think it deserved all the negative reviews. Most also categorized this as a YA novel, and I even found this in my library's YA section, but I don't think it belongs there, it's very obviously a childrens' book, and while there's nothing wrong with that, I don't know why people keep categorizing it wrong.
I'm also disappointed the sequel isn't available in America! While I thought the story wrapped up nicely and didn't need a sequel, I love to finish what I start and therefore that's a bummer.
I liked the plot, honestly! I was surprised nobody compared this to Rapunzel, since in my eyes this is definitely a Rapunzel retelling. Girl with strange name is born under bad circumstances and a witch offers to help the mother only if she can have her daughter, and the daughter is thus locked away for several years to prevent the witch from getting her and therefore longs to see the world outside....the minute I read the plot summary I thought: "This is a Rapunzel retelling!" Whether that's true or not there's way too many similarities, hence my tags up there.
Honestly not too much happens in the way of the water witch, which disappointed me since that's why I read it, and I like how at the end she is defeated by love, the one thing she wanted that she was never able to get, but for the most part, she doesn't make an appearance and is instead mentioned by other characters.
As for the historical fiction part of the novel, apparently there's some inaccuracies there but as usual I don't really care about this time period so the smaller details others noticed just slipped right by me.
Overall, the novel wasn't good, but it wasn't awful either. It was a quick, decent read, and I'm glad I read it, although honestly I'll probably forget about it in the coming weeks as more interesting books take its place in my recent memory.
I was surprised when I saw all the hate for this book! While it's not the greatest book I've read, I don't think it deserved all the negative reviews. Most also categorized this as a YA novel, and I even found this in my library's YA section, but I don't think it belongs there, it's very obviously a childrens' book, and while there's nothing wrong with that, I don't know why people keep categorizing it wrong.
I'm also disappointed the sequel isn't available in America! While I thought the story wrapped up nicely and didn't need a sequel, I love to finish what I start and therefore that's a bummer.
I liked the plot, honestly! I was surprised nobody compared this to Rapunzel, since in my eyes this is definitely a Rapunzel retelling. Girl with strange name is born under bad circumstances and a witch offers to help the mother only if she can have her daughter, and the daughter is thus locked away for several years to prevent the witch from getting her and therefore longs to see the world outside....the minute I read the plot summary I thought: "This is a Rapunzel retelling!" Whether that's true or not there's way too many similarities, hence my tags up there.
Honestly not too much happens in the way of the water witch, which disappointed me since that's why I read it, and I like how at the end she is defeated by love, the one thing she wanted that she was never able to get, but for the most part, she doesn't make an appearance and is instead mentioned by other characters.
As for the historical fiction part of the novel, apparently there's some inaccuracies there but as usual I don't really care about this time period so the smaller details others noticed just slipped right by me.
Overall, the novel wasn't good, but it wasn't awful either. It was a quick, decent read, and I'm glad I read it, although honestly I'll probably forget about it in the coming weeks as more interesting books take its place in my recent memory.