Book Review #9

Getting frustrated in my classes = buying books to soothe my anger. It's a dangerous process, but it results in me catching up on the latest YA lit and book reviews for you all, so in my head, it's all good stuff.

Today, the book subjected to my relentlessly picky nature shall be:

Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors

As always, it will be subjected to the rigorous 5 Steps of Doom: Summary, What I Liked, What I Didn't Like, The Overall Mood Said Book Left Me In, and The Overall Rating. The Overall Rating will be based on the highly selective Sara's Scale of Suck or Soar, as follows, lowest to highest:

Level 1: This is How Not to Write a Book
Level 2: What Editor Read this and said "Hmm, Let's Publish it"?
Level 3: My Faith in Writers is Wavering Precariously
Level 4: This Doesn't Suck
Level 5: I'd Read the Sequel
And the coveted Level 6: Fan-FREAKING-tastic. Buy at All Costs.

Summary: Girl raised in a family of actors/actresses. Must carry on family name in acting, be fabulous, uphold the family's theater. To save failing theater, famous heart-throb boy is hired to play Romeo opposite girl's Juliet. Gets old necklace from aunt that supposedly has dust of Shakespeare's quills in it. Girl's mother pressures her, nag nag nag, girl breaks down, crushes necklace, burst of dust, ends up transported to Romeo/Juliet story. Long story short: fake identity, warring families, spunky Juliet, messed-up story, stab wounds, romance, codpieces, death threats, goopy make-up, and apricots. Did you follow that? I almost didn't.

What I Liked: I initially bought this book because, when I read the back, I panicked and thought "Oh crap, someone ripped my The Tudor Tool idea!" and I had to know for sure whether I should sue. No suing necessary. While the general concept is similar (modern-day girl transported to history. Fictional history in this case, but still.) the overall tone/mood/plot is completely different. *whew* Good. Didn't want to have to go all crazy-white-girl on someone.

Back to What I Liked: Mimi (the girl) is a very likable character. You're forced into feeling sorry for her, what with her insanely overbearing mother and Mimi's general hatred of the life she was thrust into. Can't help but be on her side, even if she's a little extreme in her hatred. I really liked the pace of the story too; there was always something dire going on, enough so that I didn't realize I was almost done until today (I started it...yesterday? It isn't that long, I'm just slow). Everything, overall, was very cute. Mimi's coming-of-age story, the imagined Romeo/Juliet world. Very cute.

What I Didn't Like: (I love this part, don't you?) The pace was good. Too good. I didn't realize until I'd finished it that nothing actually happened. It was a total Breaking Dawn ending -- nothing was sacrificed, nothing was lost, yet the heroine got everything she ever wanted even though she did nothing to get it. THE MOMENT before Mimi got sucked into the Romeo/Juliet world, her mother was depicted as this horrific (excuse me) bitch who stole from her daughter's trust fund and would not budge on the subject of her daughter's future; the moment Mimi returned (to the EXACT moment she left in the real world), **SPOILER** her mother was suddenly transformed into a caring, oh-honey-I-just-want-you-to-be-happy mommy who groveled for her daughter's apology and promised that life would improve. **END SPOILER** Um, what now? We just went through this whole journey with Mimi only to find out that her entire screwed-up life could've been fixed simply by letting her mother have a moment to think? Sure. Yeah. Life is just that easy.

And then there's Mimi's love interest. **SPOILER** (geez, there's a lot of those with this one...) At first the love interest looks to be Benvolio who, minus the whole attempted-rape thing, would've been a whole heck of a lot more interesting than who it ends up being: heart-throb boy, Troy. At the beginning, he's your usual superstar: arrogant, charming, gorgeous, stringing along all the women, and absolutely HATED by Mimi. Because, you know, hating superstars is what MC's do. But when they get transported to the Romeo/Juliet world (yep, they both go), Troy "unveils" his true self and turns out to be a normal guy. Who'd have guessed it? The superstar isn't really a jerk, but a cleverly-disguised teenager who just wants someone to understand him. **END SPOILER**

The Overall Mood Said Book Left Me In: Eh. The beginning was really good, and I had high hopes for it once the first few chapters drew me in. Then I got to the end, and it all crumbled. So I was left as just "eh." Indifferent, I guess.

The Overall Rating: Level 3: My Faith in Writers is Wavering Precariously. All because of the end. The beginning and middle of a book can be as fan-freaking-tastic as possible, but if the ending sucks, sorry Charlie. The ending is that final test of whether or not the author knows what they're doing. Can they pull their story together in a way that makes me desperate for more? Can they prove to me that they haven't been dragging me through 200+ pages all for some mediocre finale? This one just did not deliver.


This is post #99. You know what that means...