Scan barcode
A review by wordsaremyforte
The Altered History of Willow Sparks by Tara O'Connor
2.0
Ehhh, I've seen altered history stories been done better (take Shrek Ever-After for example—I know I'm a child).
Before I head into this rant/review, I just want to say that the art was nice and pleasing to the eye.
Ex: 'Oh no! The mean girl unexpectedly stole what was in my bag when I very intelligently left it right out in the open for anyone to find it! How could this EVER happen?'
Ex: 'I'm a totally changed person because my pimples and zits are gone (how life changing!) and I wear fancy clothes, so I should totally be friends with my worst enemy and torture my best friend!!'
Please, stop. STOP using these tropes. They're stupid and overused.
Willow receives a magical book in which she can change anything about her life, and what is the first thing she does? Erases pimples. Ok, understandable, she was just trying it out to see if this 'magical book' actually works. Then she gets a guy to like her. My problem is that she doesn't change anything else that would actually teach her something important.
The only good character was Willow's best friend; she was the only one who had a sense of reality. Then you had the stereotypical trio of bad girls and the hot guy that try to ruin the MC's life for no apparent reason other than to feed his own ego.
There was one instance where hot guy asks Willow, "You don't have TV? What do you do, stare at the wall all day?' Unless this is historical fiction (yes, the early 2000's should be considered historical fiction by now), then a person shouldn't be surprised about another person not watching TV. Cable television is fading irrelevance, and there was no indicator pointing readers to the fact that this story takes place in the past. I had to check the publication date to see if this cleared anything up, but no. This was published 3 months ago (March 2018) at the time of this review.
Theplot points that were interesting were completely dropped. This story had so much potential with those ink lines steadily consuming Willow, but none of it was ever expanded upon. I would have been much more invested had the story focused more on Mr. Ages. What were his grave consequences that taught him about the danger of rewriting lives? I want to know!!!
Before I head into this rant/review, I just want to say that the art was nice and pleasing to the eye.
Spoiler
So many of the incidents in this graphic novel were cliche and predictable, and the protagonist, Willow was unbearable.Ex: 'Oh no! The mean girl unexpectedly stole what was in my bag when I very intelligently left it right out in the open for anyone to find it! How could this EVER happen?'
Ex: 'I'm a totally changed person because my pimples and zits are gone (how life changing!) and I wear fancy clothes, so I should totally be friends with my worst enemy and torture my best friend!!'
Please, stop. STOP using these tropes. They're stupid and overused.
Willow receives a magical book in which she can change anything about her life, and what is the first thing she does? Erases pimples. Ok, understandable, she was just trying it out to see if this 'magical book' actually works. Then she gets a guy to like her. My problem is that she doesn't change anything else that would actually teach her something important.
The only good character was Willow's best friend; she was the only one who had a sense of reality. Then you had the stereotypical trio of bad girls and the hot guy that try to ruin the MC's life for no apparent reason other than to feed his own ego.
There was one instance where hot guy asks Willow, "You don't have TV? What do you do, stare at the wall all day?' Unless this is historical fiction (yes, the early 2000's should be considered historical fiction by now), then a person shouldn't be surprised about another person not watching TV. Cable television is fading irrelevance, and there was no indicator pointing readers to the fact that this story takes place in the past. I had to check the publication date to see if this cleared anything up, but no. This was published 3 months ago (March 2018) at the time of this review.
Theplot points that were interesting were completely dropped. This story had so much potential with those ink lines steadily consuming Willow, but none of it was ever expanded upon. I would have been much more invested had the story focused more on Mr. Ages. What were his grave consequences that taught him about the danger of rewriting lives? I want to know!!!