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A review by mackle13
Letters to Zell by Camille Griep
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I had originally given this 3-stars, but after sitting on it for awhile, I'm feeling 2.5 is really more accurate. At most. While it did pick up towards the end, and the last 1/4 of the book was definitely more worthwhile, the first half, at least, was dreadfully slow and didn't feel like it was really going anywhere.
Anyway -
As the title of the book might suggest, this is written in epistolary form. And while the title should suggest that - I didn't realize it until I actually started reading it. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing - I've read other epistolary books, and I'm not strictly opposed to them or anything, but I do often find that the voices of the different letters aren't often different enough to really be like "this is written by a different person", and, sadly, I felt the same here.
I definitely had to keep track of who was writing what based on the heading at the start of the chapters. And even then I sometimes got the characters mixed up.
The gist of the story is that Rapunzel runs away, and the remaining three princesses are left wondering whether or not they're as happy as they're meant to be - and, of course, none of them actually are, because the whole point is that there's no real fairy tale story.
But I think my biggest issue, aside from it being a bit boring, and hard to tell the characters apart at times, and the fact that, because it's a letter there's a lot of telling over showing... is that we're meant to believe these women have been friends forever, and yet they don't seem to have anything in common, they don't listen to each other, and they don't even really seem to like each other.
They seem to be "friends" more just because they're princesses in a similar social situation, and not because they're actually, well, friends.
And I guess this is almost something they realize at the end. Sort of. Almost.
I guess that's a spoiler. Sort of. Almost...
Anyway -
I enjoy a good fractured fairy tale, but there are definitely better options on the market.
Anyway -
As the title of the book might suggest, this is written in epistolary form. And while the title should suggest that - I didn't realize it until I actually started reading it. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing - I've read other epistolary books, and I'm not strictly opposed to them or anything, but I do often find that the voices of the different letters aren't often different enough to really be like "this is written by a different person", and, sadly, I felt the same here.
I definitely had to keep track of who was writing what based on the heading at the start of the chapters. And even then I sometimes got the characters mixed up.
The gist of the story is that Rapunzel runs away, and the remaining three princesses are left wondering whether or not they're as happy as they're meant to be - and, of course, none of them actually are, because the whole point is that there's no real fairy tale story.
But I think my biggest issue, aside from it being a bit boring, and hard to tell the characters apart at times, and the fact that, because it's a letter there's a lot of telling over showing... is that we're meant to believe these women have been friends forever, and yet they don't seem to have anything in common, they don't listen to each other, and they don't even really seem to like each other.
They seem to be "friends" more just because they're princesses in a similar social situation, and not because they're actually, well, friends.
And I guess this is almost something they realize at the end. Sort of. Almost.
I guess that's a spoiler. Sort of. Almost...
Anyway -
I enjoy a good fractured fairy tale, but there are definitely better options on the market.