Stepsister

Stepsister is a story of what happens after Cinderella and her prince glide away to their castle and "live happily ever after."

Isabelle cut off her toes to try and fit into that slipper, her sister Octavia cut off her heel. Now they are known as the ugly stepsisters and are somehow supposed to still function in their village society. Not only do they have those repercussions, but there is now a war going on that is infiltrating their part of France and Fate and Chance are fighting for her life, and on top of it all, Isabelle wants to change. She wants to be better and the whole world is literally crashing down on her. Can Ella's fairy godmother help even an ugly stepsister like her?

This is a big time "girl power" book. For people who like Tamora Pierce, you will like this. This book contains many themes and morals to the story all trying to empower women and empower self in general. Finding yourself and being okay with yourself, especially when it may go against what tradition or society dictates. I'm sure many young women and young adults enjoy this book and can feel motivated to do more by reading it.

I very much enjoyed the characters and how different they developed. Though, now that I think of it, it seems like the only people who really changed except for Isabelle... So that was lacking a little. But over all they were fun characters to read about. Chance is probably one of my favorites. Jennifer Donnelly could have a lot of fun with the Grimm Fairy Tales with Chance and the Fates. And because of how well this one was written, I'd read them too.

I thought it was well done. Read well. I don't have really any problems with it, except that some might think that it was too preachy to the "girl power" side. But because it had basic self-empowerment, I can let it slide and happily enjoy the book.

Deep Blue

Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly was dripping in cheese. I am actually fairly surprised that there isn't a copy in the children's section when the childishness would be appreciated. For a children's book, like sixth grade, no higher than eighth grade, would be okay. They would enjoy it. I did not. I even read another review, hoping that it would get better, but she had the same complaints I did and said it didn't get better.

Donnelly used cliches which weren't actually cliches. Such as: Money = currensea, girlfriend - merlfriend, a family tree = coral tree, and candies are weird things like "cillawondas, bing-bangs, janteeshaptas, and zee-zees." It also has paragraphs like "the others set off and she followed at a little bit of a distance, watching Neela, swim with Ling, and Ava with Becca. ... But as she watched her oldest friend, and her three new ones, swim ahead of her, she felt surer and stronger about facing what was to come." (Two lines of brief dialog followed by a new chapter. I wrote like that when I was in high school--I was alright, but not good enough to get published, at all. I remember having filler words like "at a little bit of distance." Why not say "behind" or even "at a distance"? The book is very wordy and takes a long time to get anywhere. 

It takes a while because most of the book is an info dumb. I get that there needs to be explanations, and exploring this world, which isn't a cliche fantasy world, is important. She needed to set the environment, but I could easily skip paragraphs, almost whole pages, and not be hindered. The world was well thought out, but poorly executed on the page. 

By page 77 I was bored and I only got to 150 before I gave up. The inciting incident finally happened, but not until page 95. 95!! There was too much set up in her perfect palace life with minor dramas between her and a cliched cheerleader like figure. Again I had one in my high school stories. My character Daisy served the same purpose as this one did, filler of possible backstory. But then suddenly everyone in the capital city is dead or being held hostage by the bad guy--somehow that happened. She and her friend run, er swim, but then get captured and talk to the villain of the story. He's charismatic and condescending and threatens to kill everyone if he doesn't get his way (like another one of my characters from high school, they are really good at throwing tantrums). They escape, find the rebels and are suppsoed to save the sea from the bad guy and his evil plan.

The characters didn't develop at all throughout the first half of the book. Neela is SUPER childish at 16 years old and is always gorging herself on candies. All the relationships seem... fake? They are weird. I felt nothing for any of the characters when they died--maybe their are dead, we don't know for sure because nothing was definite about many of the ones who died. I should have felt something, especially if you are going to spend 150 pages of info dumping.

The plot was extremely cliche. You have a strange dream because you're the chosen one. You don't want to marry the guy you re betrothed too--because you're a princess. You are on your own, because what YA novel has your parents as being a big role during your adventure? Because you're the chosen one you must stop the bad guy and releasing doom and destruction on the world. There are magical objects you need to find. Oh and those mythical creatures you thought were mythical, they aren't. Moral you learn is probably friendship, because boys are dumb in this book. P.S. Girls rule and save the seas.

The only thing I think this book had going for it was the mermaid thing, but the cliches killed it for me. There are three or four other books, but I'm not going to be finishing this one let alone the others. Jennifer Donnelly, you disappointed me.

These Shallow Graves

These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly wasn't what I expected, though at the same time I found it very predictable. The cover made me think it would be a horror or thriller, but it was a simple mystery about his her father's death.

Set in the pre-turn of the century New York City, Josephine, Jo, is from a very wealthy family where nothing but puppies and flowers and getting married is talked about when women are in the room. So Jo is hopelessly naive so much so that it gets really annoying. If I was going to describe Jo naive would be the first thing, then curious and determined. But it felt like she was those things so then we could move the plot forward. Jo wasn't really good at anything that we actually get to see. Supposedly she is a good writer and dreams of being a reporter who "tells other's stories," but we never get anything of her writing. Other than that, she isn't good at anything else. No hobbies besides her writing, that we don't see, no little quirks like flicking her hair or clicking her nails... She seemed flat. Jo was really annoying, though Eddie and Oscar were more interesting, though I wished from more of them.  Most of the characters lacked character. Eddie, Oscar, and Grandmama seemed to have the most character to them. They seemed the most real, which is really sad when the main character doesn't seem real.

There is a tiny love triangle, though it doesn't run or ruin the story. Most of it is choosing between her family and the world she knew and grew up in, Bram is "good" someone who can bring her stability. Eddie, on the other hand, is a reporter who will do anything to get a story. He represents all that she wants and dreams about. He is the wildside of everything she didn't know. This triangle is more of the worlds she tries to decide between. Thankfully, it doesn't run the whole show (love triangles are really overdone).

The plot itself was predictable. I called the bad guy fairly early out, and (which is really weird) I was right. There were a few twists and turns that I didn't see coming that were nice, but if a really good reader was reading this, they would have gotten it. The story was very plot driven getting from one piece of evidence and witnesses, and like I said the plotline was predictable.

It also was really slow at the beginning and middle part of the book. I was about ready to put it down and read something else, but I persisted. I ended up finishing the last 2/3 of the book in two days because I wanted it done. So it could be a quick read and one with an interesting motive to murder, but I felt like Jo needed everything explained to her which meant that the reader had everything explained. Nothing was left up to the reader to figure out, though like I said, I figured whodunit fairly early off.

The one thing that I did like was the setting. The world and history was well thought out and she paid particular attention to the poorer sides of NYC: 1890's and what it would have been like. I have read some reviews that it was overboard, but I thought it was okay. I enjoyed another look at NYC and a part of history that I knew very little about.

A question I would have, though, would be: would Jo have been that naive because of her surroundings and family? I mean she reads the newspapers of awful things, but she doesn't know what a "disorderly house" or prostitute is? What?

Overall, I was very sad. Jennifer Donnelly's other book Revolution was excellent and this one seemed to fall flat on its face. I honestly hope there isn't a sequel.