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msjaquiss 's review for:
Tess of the Road
by Rachel Hartman
I found this book wildly overdone and not very interesting. It seems to be an attempt by the author to provide young people with a character with whom they can identify and she touches on every hot-button social issue: transgender identity, incest, violent rape, polyamory, teenage pregnancy, date rape, statutory rape, alcoholism, suicidal thoughts, prostitution, masturbation, medical rupture of a hymen, blind adherence to religion, mother-daughter tension, misunderstood teen, runaways, etc. Handling any one of these issues would have been more than enough for a single book but cramming them all into a single never-ending, not-very-interesting story just ruined the possibilities for the plot. I really enjoyed Seraphina, thought Shadowscale was slow, tedious and boring, and found this book excruciating.
I also found the Seraphina/Anne-Marie dynamic really frustrating in this book. In “Seraphina,” it’s clear that the relationship between them is strained but the character guide at the end actually labels Anne-Marie as the “not-so-wicked stepmother” and in the breakfast-after-the-wedding scene, Tess herself says that Anne-Marie was hurt because Seraphina called her stepmother by her name. So, which is it? Is the relationship strained but civil or does Anne-Marie view her stepdaughter as spawn of the devil and loathe the very sight of her?
I also found the Seraphina/Anne-Marie dynamic really frustrating in this book. In “Seraphina,” it’s clear that the relationship between them is strained but the character guide at the end actually labels Anne-Marie as the “not-so-wicked stepmother” and in the breakfast-after-the-wedding scene, Tess herself says that Anne-Marie was hurt because Seraphina called her stepmother by her name. So, which is it? Is the relationship strained but civil or does Anne-Marie view her stepdaughter as spawn of the devil and loathe the very sight of her?