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A review by finesilkflower
Better to Wish by Ann M. Martin
2.0
I really want to like this series, because I'm a diehard Ann M. Martin fan and I really like the idea of a series where time passes and time periods change and characters grow up and change. It's like the polar opposite of the Baby-sitters Club, where everything is frozen in time. But the actual book just felt so rushed. Each chapter is a snapshot in time, occurring usually 6 months but up to 5 years after the previous chapter. It's feels like a fast-motion slide carousel ride through a person's life. There's no time to settle down and enjoy it. Some of the chapters depict key family events (births, deaths, etc.); others are more slice-of-life, often involving the origin story of some object that will undoubtedly be a family heirloom in the next book.
Like I said, I like the ideas, but I keep thinking of ways it could have been done better. Maybe if it had stuck with a smaller age range, something like 14-18 instead of 8-22. Young enough to be interesting to kids, but old enough that each girl is making decisions that affect the next generation. Or to cover more time, it could have been a longer-term series, with several books for each girl. Like imagine if a kid-grows-up series like Betsy-Tacy or Alice McKinley actually spanned generations and started over with Betsy or Alice's child at age 8 or whatever? You wouldn't even need that many books for each kid, but at least 4 or 5 would be a lot better: a kid, a pre-teen, a teen, a young woman making important life decisions. Maybe Ann M didn't want to wait that long before moving onto the other generations? ooh, but it could have intercut between the various generations, wouldn't that have been cool? A book for each girl, each occurring in a different time period, then you go back again for the next age.
Ah, well.
I think I could have gotten used to the storytelling more if the characters had been a bit more developed. There's not a lot of time to explore them, especially children, who can change a lot from one chapter to the next. But even given the constraints, they're pretty sketched-in. main character Abby is particularly bland, the boring goody-goody older sister who should not be the POV character. (Little sister Rose is more of a firecracker and should obviously be the main character.) The dad is a plain and simple villain with no redeeming qualities. None of the various love interests get enough personality to be compelling or to make you root for him.
Still, it's historical girl-fiction, it's Ann M., of course I'm going to read the rest!
Like I said, I like the ideas, but I keep thinking of ways it could have been done better. Maybe if it had stuck with a smaller age range, something like 14-18 instead of 8-22. Young enough to be interesting to kids, but old enough that each girl is making decisions that affect the next generation. Or to cover more time, it could have been a longer-term series, with several books for each girl. Like imagine if a kid-grows-up series like Betsy-Tacy or Alice McKinley actually spanned generations and started over with Betsy or Alice's child at age 8 or whatever? You wouldn't even need that many books for each kid, but at least 4 or 5 would be a lot better: a kid, a pre-teen, a teen, a young woman making important life decisions. Maybe Ann M didn't want to wait that long before moving onto the other generations? ooh, but it could have intercut between the various generations, wouldn't that have been cool? A book for each girl, each occurring in a different time period, then you go back again for the next age.
Ah, well.
I think I could have gotten used to the storytelling more if the characters had been a bit more developed. There's not a lot of time to explore them, especially children, who can change a lot from one chapter to the next. But even given the constraints, they're pretty sketched-in. main character Abby is particularly bland, the boring goody-goody older sister who should not be the POV character. (Little sister Rose is more of a firecracker and should obviously be the main character.) The dad is a plain and simple villain with no redeeming qualities. None of the various love interests get enough personality to be compelling or to make you root for him
Spoiler
(the only one that sort of does, isn't the winner)Still, it's historical girl-fiction, it's Ann M., of course I'm going to read the rest!