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A review by krejdar
The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann
2.0
Thanks. I hated it.
Wow. Where the hell do I start?
This book is just bad. The general idea is cute and could have worked really well, if the writing wasn't so damn atrocious. It's not because this is a mid-grade book, either, I've read plenty of mid-grade books (Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Rangers Apprentice, Bartaemeus, Warriors, etc etc) to know I gave this a fair shot - the writing is infantile.
Some key points (aside from the bad writing) I really didn't like;
- abusing the person you have a crush on and that person still ends up liking you???? No.
- the "suspicious"/mean character is the one with a non-white name (seriously)
- the mind-reader 3rd person POV
- the hybrid named animals (ex: platyrot, rabbitkeys). I love being silly irl and doing that for jokes, but in serious world building it's really cringe
- the entire problem around male MC could have been avoided/eased if the adults had just fucking talked to him about it (a lack of communication is NOT a plot device)
- conversations that think they're being clever but they're really just incredibly pointless and empty word counts.
- the author desperately needs a crash course in "show, don't tell"
I see no point in reading any more of this series. Especially when the "big bad" is taken care of in 1 shot within the first book - you just know the rest of the book plots will be thin as fuck, and how could it possibly get thinner than this first plot?
Wow. Where the hell do I start?
This book is just bad. The general idea is cute and could have worked really well, if the writing wasn't so damn atrocious. It's not because this is a mid-grade book, either, I've read plenty of mid-grade books (Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Rangers Apprentice, Bartaemeus, Warriors, etc etc) to know I gave this a fair shot - the writing is infantile.
Some key points (aside from the bad writing) I really didn't like;
- abusing the person you have a crush on and that person still ends up liking you???? No.
- the "suspicious"/mean character is the one with a non-white name (seriously)
- the mind-reader 3rd person POV
- the hybrid named animals (ex: platyrot, rabbitkeys). I love being silly irl and doing that for jokes, but in serious world building it's really cringe
- the entire problem around male MC could have been avoided/eased if the adults had just fucking talked to him about it (a lack of communication is NOT a plot device)
- conversations that think they're being clever but they're really just incredibly pointless and empty word counts.
- the author desperately needs a crash course in "show, don't tell"
I see no point in reading any more of this series. Especially when the "big bad" is taken care of in 1 shot within the first book - you just know the rest of the book plots will be thin as fuck, and how could it possibly get thinner than this first plot?