October 10, 2018

Short & Sweet: The Storyspinner and Eleanor & Park

The Storyspinner by Becky Wallace

I actually ended up polishing this off in a day and finding it highly entertaining! Which surprises me, given that it is rife with cliches of the genre and you can tell from the writing (some awkward phrasing and metaphors) that this is a debut novel. Nevertheless, it was an inviting story with a couple main characters I liked (some of the side characters never felt really fleshed out, unfortunately) and a world with glimpses of an interesting history between various factions. The storytelling style worked pretty well to keep the momentum of the plot going, although I admit that certain characters' POVs felt a bit boring/unnecessary to me (spoiler, highlight to read: I didn't really care for the Pira and Leao POVs) and I always wanted to be back with the Johanna-Rafi side of things.

3.5 stars.


Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

I know this book has a lot of fans, but I'm afraid I found it very bleak and depressing. The problems that Eleanor faced at home overshadowed the lighter storyline of Eleanor and Park's relationship. I had to push myself to keep going, and Eleanor just kept dealing with more and more of the same awful stuff. That's not to say that it wasn't a realistic portrayal; the thoughts and emotions that Eleanor goes through felt authentic. And the writing was solid (as I have come to expect from a Rainbow Rowell novel), although I felt like it sometimes slid into melodrama. But I feel like I wasn't in the right frame of mind for reading about these sorts of serious, heavy issues, so perhaps it was at least partly a case of book-at-the-wrong-time for me.


3 stars.
 

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