rikiki's review
2.0
I bought this book at Cecil Court in London while on holiday. Mostly because it was incredibly cheap and had a very beautiful cover but also because of Cecil Courts relation to the Harry Potter books. I had no idea what it was about but I was very drawn to the fantastic elements. I have to say I’m very happy I got it cheap though because wowie.. this was not my cup of tea..
The cover is stunning and the illustrations were pretty cool but that's about where it ends for me.
I started out okay I suppose; the setting seemed very promising but I soon found myself getting annoyed with both the writing style and the main character.
Some of the stuff in the story is actually pretty darn cool - like the bull dancing for example – but the way it’s written just doesn’t make it seem nearly as exciting as it could be. I often found that things weren’t properly explained. For instance, when the main character all of a sudden starts doing mind control things, none of it is explained. Not even her reaction to the fact that she can now do these magical things is expressed (though that might be due to her robot personality). It’s just another random thing that happens. I feel like there’s a focus on the wrong things or something. It's hard to explain.
Secondly, this book is full of blatant foreshadowing and it made me feel talked to like an idiot. Maybe this is supposed to be a children’s book, in which case I guess I’d let it slip, however, I’m quite sure it’s not. Because of the constant foreshadowing everything that happens is so incredibly predictable (and I’m someone that’s typically very easily fooled). The weirdest thing is that, even though everything was predictable, I realized about 3/4th into the book that I had no idea what the storyline was. I mean I finished the book and I still don’t really get what this book was about. Everything just seemed like the random happenings of a really annoying person. Perhaps I would have gotten more into it if I had known more about Greek mythology. I found that there was considerable lack of world building, but again, maybe this Greek mythology world is a pretty established one that I’m just not familiar enough with.
Now let me tell you about this girl. She’s that stereotypical character that’s aggravatingly perfect in every way. Despite being really young, this girl always stays calm, is a genius at everything she tries her hand at, always makes the right decisions, never does anything wrong and everybody loves the crap out of her and goes out of their way to please her. It’s like special-little-snowflake-syndrome or something. So whenever anything goes slightly wrong there’s not really anything exciting about it because this girl simply makes a simple and rational decision that always works out perfectly. Nothing ever seems on the line either; I didn’t feel emotionally involved with any of the characters. Maybe it has to do with the writing style as well. There’s pretty much never any mention of how the main character is feeling. There are only objective descriptions of situations her rational interactions with it and this just makes her seem like a robot to me. She just seems too levelheaded, even when her life’s on the line she doesn’t show a drop of emotion. It really bothered me.
But I’m not going to go on forever. This book was not for me. I’d say maybe check it out if you’re really into Greek mythology. I mean, it’s really short so you might as well give it a go. In all honesty though, I imagine there’s a ton of books in this little genre that are a million times better. So I don't know....
The cover is stunning and the illustrations were pretty cool but that's about where it ends for me.
I started out okay I suppose; the setting seemed very promising but I soon found myself getting annoyed with both the writing style and the main character.
Some of the stuff in the story is actually pretty darn cool - like the bull dancing for example – but the way it’s written just doesn’t make it seem nearly as exciting as it could be. I often found that things weren’t properly explained. For instance, when the main character all of a sudden starts doing mind control things, none of it is explained. Not even her reaction to the fact that she can now do these magical things is expressed (though that might be due to her robot personality). It’s just another random thing that happens. I feel like there’s a focus on the wrong things or something. It's hard to explain.
Secondly, this book is full of blatant foreshadowing and it made me feel talked to like an idiot. Maybe this is supposed to be a children’s book, in which case I guess I’d let it slip, however, I’m quite sure it’s not. Because of the constant foreshadowing everything that happens is so incredibly predictable (and I’m someone that’s typically very easily fooled). The weirdest thing is that, even though everything was predictable, I realized about 3/4th into the book that I had no idea what the storyline was. I mean I finished the book and I still don’t really get what this book was about. Everything just seemed like the random happenings of a really annoying person. Perhaps I would have gotten more into it if I had known more about Greek mythology. I found that there was considerable lack of world building, but again, maybe this Greek mythology world is a pretty established one that I’m just not familiar enough with.
Now let me tell you about this girl. She’s that stereotypical character that’s aggravatingly perfect in every way. Despite being really young, this girl always stays calm, is a genius at everything she tries her hand at, always makes the right decisions, never does anything wrong and everybody loves the crap out of her and goes out of their way to please her. It’s like special-little-snowflake-syndrome or something. So whenever anything goes slightly wrong there’s not really anything exciting about it because this girl simply makes a simple and rational decision that always works out perfectly. Nothing ever seems on the line either; I didn’t feel emotionally involved with any of the characters. Maybe it has to do with the writing style as well. There’s pretty much never any mention of how the main character is feeling. There are only objective descriptions of situations her rational interactions with it and this just makes her seem like a robot to me. She just seems too levelheaded, even when her life’s on the line she doesn’t show a drop of emotion. It really bothered me.
But I’m not going to go on forever. This book was not for me. I’d say maybe check it out if you’re really into Greek mythology. I mean, it’s really short so you might as well give it a go. In all honesty though, I imagine there’s a ton of books in this little genre that are a million times better. So I don't know....
indrabar's review
4.0
It ended a bit suddenly, but not so quickly that I have much to complain about.
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