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A review by oddio
Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes
1.0
Holy cow this was poorly written all around. I'm sure the author had very good intentions, but nothing worked. Especially with the abrupt "tearjerker" ending.
Nothing was really shown. Everything is relayed through this jerk of a main character, Anika, as if saying "my sisters are horrible" will automatically make the readers agree that they are horrible when they've never ever said a word to our main character. Everything is told, not shown. Sure, telling can occasionally be better than showing, but when a book is attempting to build up to a grand emotional climax, we've got to care for this main character. That's very hard if we are detatched to what she's feeling due to the huge amount of mere "telling" rather than " showing". I genuinely felt more sorry for her sisters and stepfather and the narrative bashing they got than I did for Anika. I get that the point is that Anika is a jerk, but I can't even believe that when she does nothing to be a jerk aside from some snide comments in her narration and her understandable passiveness towards Becky's bullying.
Speaking of Becky, "the mean girl" of the novel, she was so unbelieveably one-dimensional. Mean Girls (the movie) worked because it genuinely attempted to give dimension and redemption to its titular mean girls. Regina George was believably bitchy, and I believe that's part of the reason the film worked so well. There's reasoning for why she would have ended up that way (her mom and her wealth), and she seems genuinely hurt when Cady mocks her in front of the entire school (and Cady is shown to be in the wrong for this, as enforced when Regina immediately gets hit by a school bus after storming off). In short, Becky gets none of that dignity. She's almost cartoonishly evil, plotting to ruin people's lives and having no justification for doing so. Because of this, I found myself rolling my eyes at Becky's inevitable downfall. Becky was nothing but a scapegoat for Anika to fight.
Not only that but...the romance. Just...the romance. In short, the two love interests in this novel only seem to love Anika because she's pretty (despite her Bella Swan-esque attempt at reasurring us that she's super ugly). Logan is worse than Jared with this, despite Logan being the book's "emotional" core and the "right" choice for Anika. At least Jared and Anika have a decent conversation before Anika leaves Logan in the dust to date Jared, but Jared seemed to like her before this for...some reason?
Logan and Anika's relationship starts by him starring at her and asking if she wants a ride for...again, some reason. She's pretty. Oh, I forgot, that's totally enough to base a teenage romance on /sarcasm. Logan spends the entire novel pining after her for...some reason, despite the fact that these two "star-crossed lovers" have hardly had half a conversation, and seem more physically attracted to each other than emotionally. Anika seems more in love with the moped than Logan himself. And we're supposed to care when [spoiler] happens? LOL no.
Overall, Anatomy of a Misfit was a huge disappointment all around. I sincerely hope that [a:Andrea Portes|278993|Andrea Portes|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1199138983p2/278993.jpg] real life wasn't this one-dimensional.
Nothing was really shown. Everything is relayed through this jerk of a main character, Anika, as if saying "my sisters are horrible" will automatically make the readers agree that they are horrible when they've never ever said a word to our main character. Everything is told, not shown. Sure, telling can occasionally be better than showing, but when a book is attempting to build up to a grand emotional climax, we've got to care for this main character. That's very hard if we are detatched to what she's feeling due to the huge amount of mere "telling" rather than " showing". I genuinely felt more sorry for her sisters and stepfather and the narrative bashing they got than I did for Anika. I get that the point is that Anika is a jerk, but I can't even believe that when she does nothing to be a jerk aside from some snide comments in her narration and her understandable passiveness towards Becky's bullying.
Speaking of Becky, "the mean girl" of the novel, she was so unbelieveably one-dimensional. Mean Girls (the movie) worked because it genuinely attempted to give dimension and redemption to its titular mean girls. Regina George was believably bitchy, and I believe that's part of the reason the film worked so well. There's reasoning for why she would have ended up that way (her mom and her wealth), and she seems genuinely hurt when Cady mocks her in front of the entire school (and Cady is shown to be in the wrong for this, as enforced when Regina immediately gets hit by a school bus after storming off). In short, Becky gets none of that dignity. She's almost cartoonishly evil, plotting to ruin people's lives and having no justification for doing so. Because of this, I found myself rolling my eyes at Becky's inevitable downfall. Becky was nothing but a scapegoat for Anika to fight.
Not only that but...the romance. Just...the romance. In short, the two love interests in this novel only seem to love Anika because she's pretty (despite her Bella Swan-esque attempt at reasurring us that she's super ugly). Logan is worse than Jared with this, despite Logan being the book's "emotional" core and the "right" choice for Anika. At least Jared and Anika have a decent conversation before Anika leaves Logan in the dust to date Jared, but Jared seemed to like her before this for...some reason?
Logan and Anika's relationship starts by him starring at her and asking if she wants a ride for...again, some reason. She's pretty. Oh, I forgot, that's totally enough to base a teenage romance on /sarcasm. Logan spends the entire novel pining after her for...some reason, despite the fact that these two "star-crossed lovers" have hardly had half a conversation, and seem more physically attracted to each other than emotionally. Anika seems more in love with the moped than Logan himself. And we're supposed to care when [spoiler] happens? LOL no.
Overall, Anatomy of a Misfit was a huge disappointment all around. I sincerely hope that [a:Andrea Portes|278993|Andrea Portes|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1199138983p2/278993.jpg] real life wasn't this one-dimensional.