The Wise One
GIVEAWAY!
My thoughts:
Calling all the fans of Celtic folklore and fantasy! The Wise One was a very quick and incredibly entertaining read that I just couldn't put down. It follows the story of a seventeen year old American girl McKenna McDwyer who discovers that her origins and her true nature are shrouded in secrets and she may have special powers. McKenna goes on a quest to find her birth mother and gradually build up the knowledge of what she herself is capable of. There were so many things I liked about the book. First of all, the writing style was extremely engaging. I felt transported into McKenna's world and felt her confusion and her desire to solve the mystery of her mother's whereabouts. Then the setting, of course-at some point McKenna and her friend Nissa reach Ireland and we see this wonderful country through their eyes. The characters- there's nothing more relatable to a teenager than the desire to find the place where you belong or the people you belong with. There is also the gradual discovery of what makes you special, makesyou stand out. There were a few things that didn't particularly work for me. The story is set in 1991, so the author takes pains to let the reader know what the political situation was at the moment, but McKenna expressing her political opinions seemed detached from the story and I wasn't sure why the author included this part. What I was more intrested in was the environmental angle which was very important on all levels of this story: the characters, the plot, the world-building. Another thing I wasn't particularly sure about was McKenna and Nissa's insta-friendship. Overall, I realy enjoyed this first part of what promises to be a very interesting series and I can't wait to read the next book! Thank you to Giselle from Xpresso Book Tours and the author for the review copy provided in exchange for an honest opinion. The Mary Shelley Club
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GIVEAWAY!
My thoughts:
Loved it! Sooooo good... First things first, I'm not a kind of person who would be overly enthusiastic about a blurb mentioning One of Us is Lying. Scream? now we are talking. Mary Shelley? oh, yes, please. I love Frankenstein (with its monumental influence on our popculture) and I love the story behind its creation. In this case, the publicist's description was spot on and I enjoyed every minute of this wild ride. Rachel Chavez is the proverbial new girl in a new school. Something bad happened to her last year which made her mum and Rachel move and change their job and school respectively. The only thing Rachel's mum insists on is Rachel keeping up her grades (you begin to wonder what exactly happened to have sent her into a spin last year, right?) and make friends. Which she kind of does. She even gets dragged (not literally, we haven't started on the horror part, but we'll get there, don't get too comfortable) to a teenage party in an abandoned house. A prank is played and the scene is set. Rachel makes an enemy of a popular girl who won't stop spreading her unsolicited opinion of Rachel ('Freak!). When Rachel finally confronts the prankster, she discovers the existence of the most mysterious and be default exclusive The Mary Shelley Club. Perhaps,she has finally found 'her own tribe', people who appreciate horror movie tropes in all their marvelous variety and see the genre the way Rachel does- as a cleansing mechanism to flush out all the wrong things in one's life, an injection of adrenaline and courage. Perhaps, this is her way to face what happened to her, the changes in herself and her biggest fear. Perhaps, she can belong. But first, she needs to pass the Fear Test, and this is where what seems an innocent game is going to get deadly serious. As it would in any decent horror movie.... The writing style is effortless and easy to follow. You get so immersed in what Rachel experiences that it is as if you've stepped into her life. Or at the very least, a brilliant horror movie. you are a bit edgy and suspicious,but you can't turn your eyes off the screen. Ups! I meant to say off the page... Rachel is a likeable and relatable protagonist. Don't we all want to fit in and belong without sacrificing what makes us unique? How far would we go in this desire? How far would we push other people to get what we want and what would it do to us? Goldy Moldavsky masterfully renders this universal teenage angst in this exciting YA thriller. Well-written, gripping, perceptive, The Mary Shelley is wickedly entertaining. I'm glad to have found a new author to watch out for- Goldy Moldavsky. Thank you to Giselle from Xpresso Book tours, NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) for the review copy provided in exchange for an honest opinion. |
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