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melindamoor 's review for:
Wildwood Dancing
by Juliet Marillier
This book gives new dimensions to the word UNDERWHELMING.
The cover is gorgeous, but everything else about this book is just the biggest MEH!
There was so much potential and it was soooo obviously wasted. It was a contradictory mess with plotholes bigger than Transylvania.
Maybe because I am not so young any more. I probably would have enjoyed it at 13, but I just cannot buy into this tale 3 decades later.
It probably also did not help that the narrator had such a whiny and saccharine voice that it gave me a permanent toothache.
And what is it with authors trying to sell their heroines as oh-so-very-clever & sensible and then making them painfully dumb and ignorant at every turn because they have no other idea how to move the plot forward?? Seriously!
There is a deep and wide pool of selfish, helpless, imbecile heroines out there in fiction, but the main character’s (Jena) sister, Tati, takes the serious biscuit. She is completely braindead & makes me want to slap her all the way to Transylvania and back just to make her see the slightest tickle of sense. And yet, she was beyond hope, really. And all because of LUV as we are told.
- Tati, you are the eldest, all your sisters, especially your small sis of 5 years, really needs your help & support .... OH NOOOOOOOO, I caaaaaaan’t, I am hopelessly in LUV.
- But your father seems to be dying, your mother has already been dead and your younger sisters truly depend on your love & care .... OH NOOOOOOOO, I don’t care, I am hopelessly in LUV.
- But all your selfishness and your foolish acts actually endanger yourself, your lover as well as your sisters and your whole family .... OH NOOOOOOOO, I don’t care, I caaaaaaan’t, I am hopelessly in LUV.
- You are starving yourself to death, what must your sisters think & feel with you perishing & wasting in front of their eyes (and the youngest one – may I remind you of the fact that she is only 5?) .... OH NOOOOOOOO, I don’t care, I caaaaaaan’t, I am hopelessly in LUV.
- But it would help your lover in his difficult quest to win you if you believed in him and actually stayed alive & strong for him so that he can come for you at the end ... OOOOHHHH, I am soooo much in LUV, but NOT THAT MUCH!
Ah well, I guess it is all right then. Let’s move on.
Jena, the MC, has some saving graces even though most of the time she also acts unbelievably dim-witted and weak for someone who is supposed to be strong & sensible.
But at least when she is told off by her younger sister Paula – the only really clever, sensible and interesting character of the whole story – that she had selfishly abandoned her younger sisters, she has the grace to be ashamed of herself & tries to make amends.
It also irritated me how she tried to sort out everything on her own, like the increasing bullying of their cousin's, Cesar & when it was clear that she is too weak to get anywhere, she just gave up, moping and groaning and waiting for others' intervention.
It never, ever occurred to her to collect all her sisters, tell them about the problems, find solutions together & defy Cesar or even slap some sense into their obtuse older sister.
The cover is gorgeous, but everything else about this book is just the biggest MEH!
There was so much potential and it was soooo obviously wasted. It was a contradictory mess with plotholes bigger than Transylvania.
Maybe because I am not so young any more. I probably would have enjoyed it at 13, but I just cannot buy into this tale 3 decades later.
It probably also did not help that the narrator had such a whiny and saccharine voice that it gave me a permanent toothache.
And what is it with authors trying to sell their heroines as oh-so-very-clever & sensible and then making them painfully dumb and ignorant at every turn because they have no other idea how to move the plot forward?? Seriously!
There is a deep and wide pool of selfish, helpless, imbecile heroines out there in fiction, but the main character’s (Jena) sister, Tati, takes the serious biscuit. She is completely braindead & makes me want to slap her all the way to Transylvania and back just to make her see the slightest tickle of sense. And yet, she was beyond hope, really. And all because of LUV as we are told.
- Tati, you are the eldest, all your sisters, especially your small sis of 5 years, really needs your help & support .... OH NOOOOOOOO, I caaaaaaan’t, I am hopelessly in LUV.
- But your father seems to be dying, your mother has already been dead and your younger sisters truly depend on your love & care .... OH NOOOOOOOO, I don’t care, I am hopelessly in LUV.
- But all your selfishness and your foolish acts actually endanger yourself, your lover as well as your sisters and your whole family .... OH NOOOOOOOO, I don’t care, I caaaaaaan’t, I am hopelessly in LUV.
- You are starving yourself to death, what must your sisters think & feel with you perishing & wasting in front of their eyes (and the youngest one – may I remind you of the fact that she is only 5?) .... OH NOOOOOOOO, I don’t care, I caaaaaaan’t, I am hopelessly in LUV.
- But it would help your lover in his difficult quest to win you if you believed in him and actually stayed alive & strong for him so that he can come for you at the end ... OOOOHHHH, I am soooo much in LUV, but NOT THAT MUCH!
Ah well, I guess it is all right then. Let’s move on.
Jena, the MC, has some saving graces even though most of the time she also acts unbelievably dim-witted and weak for someone who is supposed to be strong & sensible.
But at least when she is told off by her younger sister Paula – the only really clever, sensible and interesting character of the whole story – that she had selfishly abandoned her younger sisters, she has the grace to be ashamed of herself & tries to make amends.
It also irritated me how she tried to sort out everything on her own, like the increasing bullying of their cousin's, Cesar & when it was clear that she is too weak to get anywhere, she just gave up, moping and groaning and waiting for others' intervention.
It never, ever occurred to her to collect all her sisters, tell them about the problems, find solutions together & defy Cesar or even slap some sense into their obtuse older sister.