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A review by marieketron
The Wrythe and the Reckoning by Yvonthia Meredith Leland
Did not finish book.
2.0
I really like the cover of this book, which is what attracted me to it in the first place. Lesson learned, I guess? Judging a book by its cover can definitely lead one astray.
before i explain why i couldn’t get into this book, let me say when you could still be the right reader for this novel:
- this novel would be a great gift for a younger girl in your social circle, say in the age range of 12-16 (full disclosure: i am not good at judging reading ages for material), especially ones with a budding interest in feminism
- we meet the main character as she is a girl, mostly reminiscing over her youth in smalltown america. she doesn’t care about appearances (even though her older sister and basically every other female peer we meet does) or boys (who she has sworn off since discovering they do care about female appearance). as a result she questions the imposed gender roles present in her society
- as such, this could be a good book for someone who’s just starting on the path of feminist fiction and needs a varied palette of writing in order to determine their specific preferences
now, as to why this book didn’t appeal to me specifically:
- it was written in the first person. this is not an issue inherently, but it becomes one when it doesn’t provide us with any additional insight into the pov character’s state of mind. rather than sharing her thoughts with the reader, the main character simply told us every. singly. tiny. thing. that happened.
- which leads me to my next issue: there is a lot of telling, and very little showing. in this case, that meant a lot of characters stating what they were doing or, on a rare occasion, how they were feeling, but this was never shown in their actions. it was all laid out explicitly without much evidence other than the word of the characters to back it up.
- very clinical writing style, which was rather tedious to get through. we learn about all the things happening in excruciating (and usually unnecessary) detail. all the steps of picking up a pot etc.
- the dialogue came across as rather forced, especially within the family of our main character: they all spoke completely civilly and agreeably to each other all the time, which really doesn’t strike me as authentic.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in return for an honest review.
before i explain why i couldn’t get into this book, let me say when you could still be the right reader for this novel:
- this novel would be a great gift for a younger girl in your social circle, say in the age range of 12-16 (full disclosure: i am not good at judging reading ages for material), especially ones with a budding interest in feminism
- we meet the main character as she is a girl, mostly reminiscing over her youth in smalltown america. she doesn’t care about appearances (even though her older sister and basically every other female peer we meet does) or boys (who she has sworn off since discovering they do care about female appearance). as a result she questions the imposed gender roles present in her society
- as such, this could be a good book for someone who’s just starting on the path of feminist fiction and needs a varied palette of writing in order to determine their specific preferences
now, as to why this book didn’t appeal to me specifically:
- it was written in the first person. this is not an issue inherently, but it becomes one when it doesn’t provide us with any additional insight into the pov character’s state of mind. rather than sharing her thoughts with the reader, the main character simply told us every. singly. tiny. thing. that happened.
- which leads me to my next issue: there is a lot of telling, and very little showing. in this case, that meant a lot of characters stating what they were doing or, on a rare occasion, how they were feeling, but this was never shown in their actions. it was all laid out explicitly without much evidence other than the word of the characters to back it up.
- very clinical writing style, which was rather tedious to get through. we learn about all the things happening in excruciating (and usually unnecessary) detail. all the steps of picking up a pot etc.
- the dialogue came across as rather forced, especially within the family of our main character: they all spoke completely civilly and agreeably to each other all the time, which really doesn’t strike me as authentic.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in return for an honest review.