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adhd_reader 's review for:
The Golden Braid
by Melanie Dickerson
1.5 stars. oh boy, this is gonna be a long review.
first of all, the ONLY reason this isn't a full on 1 star review is because it's a rapunzel retelling, and i'm a sucker for anything rapunzel and can't bring myself to rate it 1 star. it deserves it though. so here are my issues with this book:
THE WRITING
if you told me that this book was written by a middle schooler, i would probably genuinely believe you. the entire book is "telling instead of showing" which is the opposite of what you want to do! also, the pacing is WAY TOO FAST! since we are just being told information, instead of being shown it, the book goes at supersonic speed. also, the amount of grammar mistakes and weird formatting choices make me genuinely question how this got through the publishing process. there are so many random exposition dumps and random character descriptions that are SO UNNATURAL! this book suffers from "white room syndrome" where all the actions could just happen in a white room, due to no setting establishment. there are NO descriptions of the environment or setting, and the events of the story just kind of "happen" with no reasoning to them. on that note, WHAT IS THE PLOT?! i don't even know what the plot was meant to be! the only parts where i was mildly intrigued and held my attention were the dialogue scenes between rapunzel and gothel! there's barely any dialogue in this book too, so i could not get invested at all! my brain will explode if i keep talking about this. next.
THE CHARACTERS
all of the characters in this book SUCK! if you asked me to name 1 single character trait of rapunzel in this book, i cannot do it. same goes for gerek (i had to go back and look his name up, that's how forgettable he is). every other character is useless. i cannot remember a single name outside of the 3 main characters. none of them have any personality, and are just used as plot devices for what little plot this book has. the only MILDLY compelling character was gothel, but she's still cardboard.
again, the only reason this is a 1.5 instead of a 1 is because i can't bring myself to rate a rapunzel retelling 1 star. just know that if i didn't have an emotional attachment to the story of rapunzel, this would ABSOLUTELY be a 1 star!
first of all, the ONLY reason this isn't a full on 1 star review is because it's a rapunzel retelling, and i'm a sucker for anything rapunzel and can't bring myself to rate it 1 star. it deserves it though. so here are my issues with this book:
THE WRITING
if you told me that this book was written by a middle schooler, i would probably genuinely believe you. the entire book is "telling instead of showing" which is the opposite of what you want to do! also, the pacing is WAY TOO FAST! since we are just being told information, instead of being shown it, the book goes at supersonic speed. also, the amount of grammar mistakes and weird formatting choices make me genuinely question how this got through the publishing process. there are so many random exposition dumps and random character descriptions that are SO UNNATURAL! this book suffers from "white room syndrome" where all the actions could just happen in a white room, due to no setting establishment. there are NO descriptions of the environment or setting, and the events of the story just kind of "happen" with no reasoning to them. on that note, WHAT IS THE PLOT?! i don't even know what the plot was meant to be! the only parts where i was mildly intrigued and held my attention were the dialogue scenes between rapunzel and gothel! there's barely any dialogue in this book too, so i could not get invested at all! my brain will explode if i keep talking about this. next.
THE CHARACTERS
all of the characters in this book SUCK! if you asked me to name 1 single character trait of rapunzel in this book, i cannot do it. same goes for gerek (i had to go back and look his name up, that's how forgettable he is). every other character is useless. i cannot remember a single name outside of the 3 main characters. none of them have any personality, and are just used as plot devices for what little plot this book has. the only MILDLY compelling character was gothel, but she's still cardboard.
again, the only reason this is a 1.5 instead of a 1 is because i can't bring myself to rate a rapunzel retelling 1 star. just know that if i didn't have an emotional attachment to the story of rapunzel, this would ABSOLUTELY be a 1 star!