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A review by janina_reads
Dreaming of Amelia by Jaclyn Moriarty
4.0
Another winner from Moriarty!
Seriously, I love the Ashbury series. It has these quirky – but not too quirky – characters and just the right mix of humour, family issues, friendship, romance and suspense. While I would say that I liked [b:Feeling Sorry For Celia|82783|Feeling Sorry for Celia (Ashbury/Brookfield, #1)|Jaclyn Moriarty|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171025737s/82783.jpg|1013926] and [b:Finding Cassie Crazy|11032288|Finding Cassie Crazy|Jaclyn Moriarty|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51--FuK-OFL._SL75_.jpg|15952225] a tiny bit better, Dreaming of Amelia brought back some of my favourite characters (Lydia and Seb!), but also introduced new ones I grew to love.
It is a big book (over 500 pages) and slightly different in style from the first two (haven’t read Bindy yet), but I didn’t feel like it was too long or drawn out. Sure, at first, all those pages of high school students’ attempts at writing gothic fiction seemed a bit too much, but I soon got into the story and the pages just flew by. I laughed out loud at Em’s extensive use of exclamation marks, her recurring weather descriptions and her tendency to mix up words of foreign origin (my favourite: incontinence instead of inconsistence). And even though I didn’t particularly care for the storyline following Tom, an Irish convict settling in Australia in the 1800, he played his part in the conclusion and I don’t think he should have been left out.
What I love so much about Moriarty’s books: By telling her stories in the form of letters, emails, notes, essays, protocols, newspaper articles, … she gives her readers the chance to discover things for themselves without telling them what happens, but showing them instead. I love finding out for myself what might have happened if something is only hinted at, described by one of her characters but you are not entirely sure what exactly has been going on … For me, her books are a little bit like those detective books I used to have when I was younger, where you were supposed to find out who the murderer is along with the hero or the heroine of the story.
#3 Aussie YA Challenge 2011
Seriously, I love the Ashbury series. It has these quirky – but not too quirky – characters and just the right mix of humour, family issues, friendship, romance and suspense. While I would say that I liked [b:Feeling Sorry For Celia|82783|Feeling Sorry for Celia (Ashbury/Brookfield, #1)|Jaclyn Moriarty|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171025737s/82783.jpg|1013926] and [b:Finding Cassie Crazy|11032288|Finding Cassie Crazy|Jaclyn Moriarty|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51--FuK-OFL._SL75_.jpg|15952225] a tiny bit better, Dreaming of Amelia brought back some of my favourite characters (Lydia and Seb!), but also introduced new ones I grew to love.
It is a big book (over 500 pages) and slightly different in style from the first two (haven’t read Bindy yet), but I didn’t feel like it was too long or drawn out. Sure, at first, all those pages of high school students’ attempts at writing gothic fiction seemed a bit too much, but I soon got into the story and the pages just flew by. I laughed out loud at Em’s extensive use of exclamation marks, her recurring weather descriptions and her tendency to mix up words of foreign origin (my favourite: incontinence instead of inconsistence). And even though I didn’t particularly care for the storyline following Tom, an Irish convict settling in Australia in the 1800, he played his part in the conclusion and I don’t think he should have been left out.
What I love so much about Moriarty’s books: By telling her stories in the form of letters, emails, notes, essays, protocols, newspaper articles, … she gives her readers the chance to discover things for themselves without telling them what happens, but showing them instead. I love finding out for myself what might have happened if something is only hinted at, described by one of her characters but you are not entirely sure what exactly has been going on … For me, her books are a little bit like those detective books I used to have when I was younger, where you were supposed to find out who the murderer is along with the hero or the heroine of the story.
#3 Aussie YA Challenge 2011