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marierossi 's review for:
The Ethan I Was Before
by Ali Standish
3.5 stars.
It came across a little formulaic for me to bump this up to 4 stars but I fully acknowledge that the reason is probably that this is the only genre of MG (contemporary/tragedy/best friend feels) I'm interested in reading and so I judge them harsher than others. Don't get me wrong, it's a solid debut, but it is very much a debut. It edged on Coralee coming across as a budding manic-pixie-dream-girl (*gag*) but that gets cleaned up at the end enough for me to get over it.
I loved the small town Georgia setting, loved that it was set during the school year, LOVED that red wolves got a shout out. I also appreciated that things in Ethan's head were not always how they were in reality and that the few reveals were subtle and natural.
An author to watch, I think she'll grow a lot with her next few books.
It came across a little formulaic for me to bump this up to 4 stars but I fully acknowledge that the reason is probably that this is the only genre of MG (contemporary/tragedy/best friend feels) I'm interested in reading and so I judge them harsher than others. Don't get me wrong, it's a solid debut, but it is very much a debut. It edged on Coralee coming across as a budding manic-pixie-dream-girl (*gag*) but that gets cleaned up at the end enough for me to get over it.
I loved the small town Georgia setting, loved that it was set during the school year, LOVED that red wolves got a shout out. I also appreciated that things in Ethan's head were not always how they were in reality and that the few reveals were subtle and natural.
An author to watch, I think she'll grow a lot with her next few books.