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ellemnope 's review for:
Dorothy in the Land of Monsters
by Garten Gevedon
* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *
2.5 stars. This is a bit of an awkward review because though overall it rates at a 2.5 star, there were things about this book that were absolutely 4 stars. Unfortunately, when I combine all of the aspects of the reading experience, some components just dragged down the rest.
I loved the premise. LOVED it. I'm a big fan of retellings and twisted and dark retellings particularly tickle my fancy. This is all sorts of messy and fun. I loved the fact that it kept the bones of the original Oz (the books, NOT the movie) in place. The narrative was imaginative in this way and just made it enjoyable to read. There were fantastic liberties taken with the original stories and I loved being placed in this familiar (yet totally turned on its head) world.
The writing style messed with me a little. It felt overly conflicted. Overall, it was good and there was a clear existence of talent. The sensory experiences were great and the interaction sequences were, for the most part, coherent and exciting. But...the dialogue was often awkward and Dorothy's particular tendency toward bathroom humor and defining swear words was a definite turn off. In addition, the writing itself was often lyrical and highly descriptive, but then would become overly complex with ten-dollar thesaurus words. I'm talking completely obscure words that I don't know if I've even ever heard before...and I consider myself fairly well read and educated. This kind of word choice felt out of place and really made it feel like there was a bit of trying too hard to impress the reader. I often got pulled out of the story by these events.
My other major issue with the book was that it could have used a bit of trimming. Sometimes authors don't seem to trust the reader to grasp pieces of the story or the development of relationships between the characters so there becomes a bit of laboring over the point. That happened a lot in this book. Things, particularly the plot developments between Dorothy and Nick, were often repeated and it felt like deja vu in some of the internal monologue and dialogue pieces. Had this been smoothed out, I would have enjoyed the book a lot more.
I'm very conflicted with this book to be honest. It's kind of like the old nursery rhyme about the little girl with the curl on her forehead -- when it was good, it was very, very good, but when it was bad...well, it was painful. So now comes the point where I have to decide whether or not to continue with the series. I want to know where the story goes because I really found the imaginative pieces so much fun. It was clever and Gevedon clearly has the ability to write a good scene and some interesting characters. However, I'm not sure I'm up to wading through another repetitive narrative and dealing with the potty humor. I'll probably give it a try since this was a debut novel and hope that the writing in the follow up shows developed maturity.
2.5 stars. This is a bit of an awkward review because though overall it rates at a 2.5 star, there were things about this book that were absolutely 4 stars. Unfortunately, when I combine all of the aspects of the reading experience, some components just dragged down the rest.
I loved the premise. LOVED it. I'm a big fan of retellings and twisted and dark retellings particularly tickle my fancy. This is all sorts of messy and fun. I loved the fact that it kept the bones of the original Oz (the books, NOT the movie) in place. The narrative was imaginative in this way and just made it enjoyable to read. There were fantastic liberties taken with the original stories and I loved being placed in this familiar (yet totally turned on its head) world.
The writing style messed with me a little. It felt overly conflicted. Overall, it was good and there was a clear existence of talent. The sensory experiences were great and the interaction sequences were, for the most part, coherent and exciting. But...the dialogue was often awkward and Dorothy's particular tendency toward bathroom humor and defining swear words was a definite turn off. In addition, the writing itself was often lyrical and highly descriptive, but then would become overly complex with ten-dollar thesaurus words. I'm talking completely obscure words that I don't know if I've even ever heard before...and I consider myself fairly well read and educated. This kind of word choice felt out of place and really made it feel like there was a bit of trying too hard to impress the reader. I often got pulled out of the story by these events.
My other major issue with the book was that it could have used a bit of trimming. Sometimes authors don't seem to trust the reader to grasp pieces of the story or the development of relationships between the characters so there becomes a bit of laboring over the point. That happened a lot in this book. Things, particularly the plot developments between Dorothy and Nick, were often repeated and it felt like deja vu in some of the internal monologue and dialogue pieces. Had this been smoothed out, I would have enjoyed the book a lot more.
I'm very conflicted with this book to be honest. It's kind of like the old nursery rhyme about the little girl with the curl on her forehead -- when it was good, it was very, very good, but when it was bad...well, it was painful. So now comes the point where I have to decide whether or not to continue with the series. I want to know where the story goes because I really found the imaginative pieces so much fun. It was clever and Gevedon clearly has the ability to write a good scene and some interesting characters. However, I'm not sure I'm up to wading through another repetitive narrative and dealing with the potty humor. I'll probably give it a try since this was a debut novel and hope that the writing in the follow up shows developed maturity.