You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
practicalcat 's review for:
Ana of California
by Andi Teran
There is some of this I really loved (the adaptation of the raspberry cordial shenanigans for example) and I really, really wanted to love this retelling of Anne of Green Gables (a childhood favorite, standby, best friend) featuring a Latina foster kid but I felt like Teran hit the plot points without capturing the spirit of what she was adapting.
Like, Anne is about childhood (reclaiming and refashioning it), this is necessarily about adulthood (learning to grow into it, even against one's will) and the way that discrepancy was forced into resolution felt really hollow to me.
I think where Teran gets lost is in not giving the story room to breath. I don't care about anything when I'm being asked to care about ten thousand things at once. There's too much: Abbie and Emmett's respective and combined backstories, Cole's stuff, Rye's stuff, Rye's stuff with Cole, Cole's stuff with Abbie and Emmett, Ana's history, Ana's future, Ana's art, Abbie and Emmett's business.
I don't even know what the point was -- I think maybe Cole's family's stuff with Emmett but there's nothing to grab onto. (The shifting perspective doesn't help. Could we just stay in third-person limited Ana pov please? Like I do not even care for a minute what is motivating Will the restauranteur with a thing for Abbie.) This was all very pleasant to read (and I will probably order it for my library for that very reason) but ultimately pretty hollow.
Maybe in retrospect Montgomery's book would feel the same way. I don't think so but I don't really have an argument for why not.
Like, Anne is about childhood (reclaiming and refashioning it), this is necessarily about adulthood (learning to grow into it, even against one's will) and the way that discrepancy was forced into resolution felt really hollow to me.
I think where Teran gets lost is in not giving the story room to breath. I don't care about anything when I'm being asked to care about ten thousand things at once. There's too much: Abbie and Emmett's respective and combined backstories, Cole's stuff, Rye's stuff, Rye's stuff with Cole, Cole's stuff with Abbie and Emmett, Ana's history, Ana's future, Ana's art, Abbie and Emmett's business.
I don't even know what the point was -- I think maybe Cole's family's stuff with Emmett but there's nothing to grab onto. (The shifting perspective doesn't help. Could we just stay in third-person limited Ana pov please? Like I do not even care for a minute what is motivating Will the restauranteur with a thing for Abbie.) This was all very pleasant to read (and I will probably order it for my library for that very reason) but ultimately pretty hollow.
Maybe in retrospect Montgomery's book would feel the same way. I don't think so but I don't really have an argument for why not.