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A review by edottiffany
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
2.0
So, I greatly disliked this book. And, I'm really disappointed because I had really wanted to read it and the cover is seriously so beautiful.
I was disappointed fairly early on because the story progressed very slowly. Painfully slow. There was actually a moment where I thought that the book would get better because the story finally picked up, but it was short-lived, and I was left entirely underwhelmed by Hooper's first novel.
There are really three things that contributed to my low rating:
1. The lack of quotation marks for dialogue. Oh my goodness. I think this was the worst literary decision the author made. There was A LOT of dialogue in this book, and I found it completely inappropriate to not assist the reader by including quotation marks. I found myself needing to reread conversations because I didn't realize someone was speaking at first. It was a big reason why I struggled to get through this one.
2. The magical realism was really disappointing. I actually love magical realism, but this was not integrated into the story properly in my opinion. I found it jarring and questioned the author's intentions for including it.
3. What was the point? Hooper drug out a fairly benign and uninteresting love triangle by narrating in roundabout ways and to what end? I don't know. I couldn't figure out the objective when I started the book, and when I got to the end, I still didn't know WHY this story needed to be on paper?
Apologies for the quickly whipped up review. Hopefully someone still finds it useful!
I was disappointed fairly early on because the story progressed very slowly. Painfully slow. There was actually a moment where I thought that the book would get better because the story finally picked up, but it was short-lived, and I was left entirely underwhelmed by Hooper's first novel.
There are really three things that contributed to my low rating:
1. The lack of quotation marks for dialogue. Oh my goodness. I think this was the worst literary decision the author made. There was A LOT of dialogue in this book, and I found it completely inappropriate to not assist the reader by including quotation marks. I found myself needing to reread conversations because I didn't realize someone was speaking at first. It was a big reason why I struggled to get through this one.
2. The magical realism was really disappointing. I actually love magical realism, but this was not integrated into the story properly in my opinion. I found it jarring and questioned the author's intentions for including it.
3. What was the point? Hooper drug out a fairly benign and uninteresting love triangle by narrating in roundabout ways and to what end? I don't know. I couldn't figure out the objective when I started the book, and when I got to the end, I still didn't know WHY this story needed to be on paper?
Apologies for the quickly whipped up review. Hopefully someone still finds it useful!