A review by steph01924
The Locket by Stacey Jay
4.0
I enjoyed this book. The plot is nothing revolutionary--what if you could do some part of your life over and some random magic artifact let you?--but I liked the finished product. The writing was smart and the characters felt fleshed out.
I liked Katie. She grew on me, especially since the initial open of her primping for her date made me rear back for a second and think, "Is this an airhead book?" But we quickly got to see more of her personality.
Sometimes I sit back from a book and think, hey, what if I were in so-and-so's position, what would I do? How would I feel? Is that close to how this character is reacting? For some books with plots like this, the answer is no. The character doesn't think about how cuckoo the situation is until way late in the book when everything's majorly messing up. So I liked that while Katie was happy she had a re-do, she was also creeped out about it happening right off, about all the little changes to the world and that she couldn't get the necklace off. I felt her freak-out.
I started to get a little annoyed with her insistence that she and Isaac were 'it', but because I liked her so much I tried to look at it objectively. Katie's seventeen. She's never known anything but Isaac. She's obviously got a confidence issue, which she figures out later. So as much as she may want Mitch, she is going to cling desperately to the one thing she knows for certain, especially in this nutty new world. So...I can forgive her for that (and possibly skim some repetitive paragraphs). Especially with the way the book ends!
I really liked Mitch as the 'love interest'. He was his own complete character, and Jay took us through the reasons Katie would fall in love with him (Show, don't tell!). They had some nice banter, some sexually charged moments, some sweetly emotional ones, and it felt like I was witnessing her fall in love with him for the first time. And there were REASONS for her to do so! (Take note Twilight knock-offs.)
I would've liked a little more explanation about the locket. Why was it in her grandmother's things? Does it just magically go to whomever it wants? Did her grandmother use it or ever really own it? (Katie has a interesting thought when she sees her picture and Mitch's inside, like the locket shows its last victims before it moves on. I would've liked to have found out if that was true.)
Despite my questions, I still feel that it was a strong read, and enjoyable nonetheless.
I liked Katie. She grew on me, especially since the initial open of her primping for her date made me rear back for a second and think, "Is this an airhead book?" But we quickly got to see more of her personality.
Sometimes I sit back from a book and think, hey, what if I were in so-and-so's position, what would I do? How would I feel? Is that close to how this character is reacting? For some books with plots like this, the answer is no. The character doesn't think about how cuckoo the situation is until way late in the book when everything's majorly messing up. So I liked that while Katie was happy she had a re-do, she was also creeped out about it happening right off, about all the little changes to the world and that she couldn't get the necklace off. I felt her freak-out.
I started to get a little annoyed with her insistence that she and Isaac were 'it', but because I liked her so much I tried to look at it objectively. Katie's seventeen. She's never known anything but Isaac. She's obviously got a confidence issue, which she figures out later. So as much as she may want Mitch, she is going to cling desperately to the one thing she knows for certain, especially in this nutty new world. So...I can forgive her for that (and possibly skim some repetitive paragraphs). Especially with the way the book ends!
I really liked Mitch as the 'love interest'. He was his own complete character, and Jay took us through the reasons Katie would fall in love with him (Show, don't tell!). They had some nice banter, some sexually charged moments, some sweetly emotional ones, and it felt like I was witnessing her fall in love with him for the first time. And there were REASONS for her to do so! (Take note Twilight knock-offs.)
I would've liked a little more explanation about the locket. Why was it in her grandmother's things? Does it just magically go to whomever it wants? Did her grandmother use it or ever really own it? (Katie has a interesting thought when she sees her picture and Mitch's inside, like the locket shows its last victims before it moves on. I would've liked to have found out if that was true.)
Despite my questions, I still feel that it was a strong read, and enjoyable nonetheless.