Tris & Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison- Reading Level: Young Adult
- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: EgmontUSA
- ISBN-10: 1606841734
- ISBN-13: 978-1606841730
- Received From: netGalley
From Goodreads:
A modern retelling of the German fairytale "Tristan and Isolde", Tris and Izzie is about a young witch named Izzie who is dating Mark King, the captain of the basketball team and thinks her life is going swimmingly well. Until -- she makes a love potion for her best friend Brangane and then ends up taking it herself accidentally, and falling in love with Tristan, the new guy at school
My Thoughts:
I saw this book on netGalley and it was the cover that drew me in and then the synopsis is really good as well, so I had high hopes for this book. However, sadly this book most definitely did not live up to my expectations. When I got to page 4 and I read this line: "Mark told me that if I really disliked him he would 'exile' him, which meant that no one would speak to him without Mark's permission.", it was a total *headdesk* moment! That is the moment when I started to get a bad feeling about this book but I kept reading hoping that it was a fluke.
Reason #1: The characters in her book are just downright annoying, absolutely none of them had any redeeming qualities about them. Izzie, to put it simply she's a moron, a hypocrite, and someone who thinks that she knows it all. Branna, I think I actually hated her more than I did Izzie. These girls claim to be best friends but they have no consideration for each other at all. Izzie decides that since Branna doesn't have a boyfriend that she is going to use one of her mom's love potions even though Branna said that she didn't want one. Then Branna decides to break her promise, of keeping the secret that Izzie's mom can do magic, because she "loves" Mark (who is Izzie's boyfriend) and wants to prove to him that Izzie has lied to him while she hasn't. Mark, is a freaking douche bag and very flaky, end of story! Tristan, isn't even a main character. Mark gets more time in the book than he does even though it's his name is in the title.
Reason #2: The plot is a problem as well. The first part of the story you spend reading about the immature characters living their life as high schoolers and then all of the sudden a two-headed dog tries to kill Izzie. This is also when she finds out that there is a giant serpent trying to kill her and she has to kill it to free the place where she was born from his evil dictatorship. The magic just felt so out of place in the book and wasn't very well executed either.
Reason #3: I just didn't care. I didn't care if Izzie got killed by the serpent or if she killed the serpent. I didn't care who ended up with who. If for someone reason all of her characters mysteriously died, I would have been fine with that as well. The only reason that I finished the book was because it would have annoyed me to not have.
Overall, I give this book 1 Quill. I wouldn't even check this book out from the library. The plot had the potential but it was just a flop.
<3 Shannon
I had a similar reaction to this book. I simply couldn't get over how stupid Izzie is. And then our villain is a giant snake? WTF? If this book were written as a parody, or had any hint of irony, it would actually be really funny. As it stands, it's just bad. Great review!
ReplyDeleteThis book was such a disappointment! You wrote a great review of the problems - I so couldn't manage that. The writing was just SO BAD. I wish it'd've been better!
ReplyDeleteAww, this makes me sad because I wanted this book to be good. Haha. The cover is also what drew me in. Mainly because I've seen that image a lot and always thought it was so beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've heard anything good about this book yet lol. It's such a freaking shame too, because the cover is so GORGEOUS.
ReplyDeleteStill haven't finished this one.I stopped when the female character became too annoying.
ReplyDeleteIt was such a great "idea" and the author just didn't implement it properly!
Krazyyme @ Young Readers