A review by readingrobyn
Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci
2.0
The P.L.A.I.N Janes feels a little bit too plain.
While I was reading Janes in Love the sequel to [b:The Plain Janes|313162|The Plain Janes|Cecil Castellucci|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173671615s/313162.jpg|2267175] my overall feeling was "shrug". This was a solid continuation of the previous story, set only days after the final events in the last graphic novel. But for me, this worked more against it then for it. It's just more of the same thing, and although I liked the last book and would recommend it to anyone who's interested, I don't see why this was made as a separate title.
I liked that this time around we got to know more about the other Janes, their characters shined through the story a bit, showing some actual character traits beyond their over-the-top labels. I'm not going to say "stereotypes" because they do have their own individual personalities but I really noticed in this book how it's a shame that the main Jane is the only one of the lot that gets to be a rounded character.
Speaking of our main Jane, she spends most of the story in angst. I won't go so far as to call it unnecessary because it does center around honest issues but it was just enough for me to wonder if anything else was actually going to happen. Nothing really did.
This is a case of a character driven story where everything just falls flat. Nothing is particularly bad, but nothing is amazing either.
I stick with my assessment of the first book in saying that this story overall would have been more dynamic as a novel where the characters could be given time to develop into people I could see myself investing in.
Overall, I recommend skipping the squeal.
While I was reading Janes in Love the sequel to [b:The Plain Janes|313162|The Plain Janes|Cecil Castellucci|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173671615s/313162.jpg|2267175] my overall feeling was "shrug". This was a solid continuation of the previous story, set only days after the final events in the last graphic novel. But for me, this worked more against it then for it. It's just more of the same thing, and although I liked the last book and would recommend it to anyone who's interested, I don't see why this was made as a separate title.
I liked that this time around we got to know more about the other Janes, their characters shined through the story a bit, showing some actual character traits beyond their over-the-top labels. I'm not going to say "stereotypes" because they do have their own individual personalities but I really noticed in this book how it's a shame that the main Jane is the only one of the lot that gets to be a rounded character.
Speaking of our main Jane, she spends most of the story in angst. I won't go so far as to call it unnecessary because it does center around honest issues but it was just enough for me to wonder if anything else was actually going to happen. Nothing really did.
This is a case of a character driven story where everything just falls flat. Nothing is particularly bad, but nothing is amazing either.
I stick with my assessment of the first book in saying that this story overall would have been more dynamic as a novel where the characters could be given time to develop into people I could see myself investing in.
Overall, I recommend skipping the squeal.