Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

(Cover picture courtesy of The Halifax Reader.)

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten-year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night.  Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard—their secret hiding place—and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.

Sixty years later: Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the roundup.  In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah, and to questions about her own romantic future.

There are two words to describe this book and neither of them are particularly eloquent: meh and predictable.  As much as I hate to say it, once you’ve read quite a few books on the Holocaust, they all start sounding the same.  Sarah’s Key is an average book, but it is incredibly predictable and there’s nothing in it that really distinguishes it from other Holocaust-related novels.  I stand by my first impression: meh.

Using a boring series of cardboard cutouts Tatiana de Rosnay tells the story of Julia, a modern-day American journalist living in Paris, and Sarah, a ten-year-old Jewish girl during the Holocaust.  There is nothing exceptional about either of these characters and you don’t actually care about them until halfway into the novel because the first few chapters are basically information dumps that leave the reader slightly confused, especially in Julia’s point of view.  I feel that novels dealing with the Holocaust should show some new insight into that horrific period in history or at least raise new questions about it.  Sarah’s Key does neither of these.

The plot is slow but fairly consistent, so I’ll give de Rosnay that at least.  But much like the characters, it is entirely predictable with nothing new added to it.  This is partly because I have read quite a few novels on the subject and because every Holocaust cliché ever written is thrown at you in the course of the novel.

I give this book 2.5/5 stars.

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The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

(Cover picture courtesy of The Oubliette.)

Ponyboy can count on his brothers.  And on his friends.  But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up “greasers” like Ponyboy.  At least he knows what to expect—until the night someone takes things too far.

Warning: I am about to criticize another classic novel.  But before you begin writing your hate mail, at least hear me out.

S. E. Hinton was sixteen when she wrote most of the novel and the quality of writing reflects her inexperience.  I mean, sixteen is young no matter how you look at it and most sixteen-year-olds are barely mature enough to shut up and pay attention in school, let alone write a novel.  I truly admire her for writing and publishing a novel so young, but The Outsiders is a poorly written novel.  Hinton did not have the maturity to write as well as she would have if she wrote it as an adult.  If only John Scalzi’s advice to teenage writers had been around at the time…

Ponyboy feels like a girl to me.  When I say this, I mean I can tell his first person point of view was written by a woman.  Some women writers like Mira Grant can change their voices very well (see Deadline), but Hinton could not pull it off.  Yes, I know Ponyboy is supposed to be sensitive, but there is a fine line between sensitive and obviously written by a woman.

The plot of The Outsiders isn’t bad, but it’s not great either.  Nowadays it would be considered cliché (the class warfare between the socs and the greasers), but one has to take into account when it was written.  In 1967, this wasn’t cliché; it was reality.  As for the characters…meh.  They’re not really terrible, but none of them are memorable, despite their weird names.  Ponyboy?  Sodapop?  Give me a break.

I give this book 1/5 stars.

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The Mad Reviewer is now on Twitter

I just did what I swore I would never do.  I’m on Twitter now.

Since I decided to start accepting more guest posters, I figured why not get serious about the whole social networking aspect of blogging.  So now I’m on Twitter, for those of you that have Twitter as well.  You can find me @TheMadReviewer if you’re looking to laugh at a complete Luddite when it comes to social media.

The Mad Reviewer is now Accepting Guest Posts

As you probably know (my regular readers anyway) I already have a wonderful guest poster, Savindi from The Streetlight Reader.  She does an absolutely amazing job and guest posts pretty much whenever I ask her, usually a few times per month.  It’s great that she does that for me, but I’ve been thinking of getting a few more people to guest post once or twice.  Do you think you’d like to guest post here?  Well, here’s some criteria:

1.  You must write a book review or an article on books, preferably something teens can read.  This is supposed to be a YA blog, after all, so I try to have content that young adults would like to read.  If you’re writing a book review, it had better not be on a book I’ve already read.  But if you have a different opinion on an article I wrote, that’s fine. Continue reading →

An Earthly Knight by Janet McNaughton

(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

The year is 1162.  Sixteen-year-old Lady Jeanette Avenel has always enjoyed her freedom as second daughter of a minor Norman nobleman in Teviotdale, Scotland.  But after her sister, Isabel, disgraces the family, Jenny is suddenly thrust into the role of eldest daughter.  Now Jenny has been chosen as a potential bride to the heir of the king of Scotland.  While learning the customs of the royal court, Jenny is drawn to a mysterious young man rumoured to have been kidnapped by fairies, not knowing his past holds a secret that threatens everyone close to him—including Jenny.

An Earthly Knight is one of those books that stays with you, even years later.  I decided to re-read it a few weeks ago and it was just as good as I remember.

Based off the ballads Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight and Tam Lin, it is both a mixture of historical fiction and fantasy.  Since I have never read either of these ballads, I will not comment on how close An Earthly Knight sticks to them because I have no idea.  However, I do recognize many fairy tale elements, like evil fairies and false love, so readers who love fairy tales will also enjoy this book.

Lady Jeanette, usually called Jenny, is the wonderful main character of this novel.  She is three dimensional, strong for a woman of her time and does not fall instantly in love with Tam Lin.  Her sister Isabel is actually my favourite character because although she is only a secondary character, Janet McNaughton did not neglect her character development.  Or the character development of any other secondary characters, for that matter.

An Earthly Knight may be a bit slow-paced for some readers because of the descriptive writing style, but I still enjoyed it.  Janet McNaughton draws her readers into a world where history and myth collide, where love and loyalty are put to the test and traditions are challenged.  If you like fairy tale re-tellings, fantasy, and/or historical fiction, this is the book for you.  As long as you don’t mind a little cliché, that is.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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