Strange FAE by A.D. MacleMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I liked the premise for this book. Aetlantis is is a continent that got lost through a rift between worlds and is now only accessible through a series of portals around the planet. Aetlantis is advanced scientifically and cloning is common, because there are fertility issues and low female birth rates. The chancellor had a daughter that he sent away to be hidden from his enemies, on Earth, but the guards placing her in safety were killed on the way back and no one knows where she’s gone.
17 years later Brigitte is a girl with an abusive mother who’s boyfriends get more dangerous with every year that passes. Luckily, though she lives in a poor part of town, she is exceptionally bright and has a scholarship to a private school on the opposite side of town. She has precisely one friend. Then one day four gorgeous new guys start at the school and start to take an interest in her.
The main problem I have with this book is the silly banter. I don’t mind banter, but not when it fills the whole book. It is also quite silly stuff and though the character is young, it struck me as ridiculously juvenile. Brigitte makes a big deal of saying that she creates the happy silliness to compensate for feeling depressed and angry, as a mechanism to try put her on an even keel, but it still just annoys me. It strikes me as trying too hard to create a “zany” character. Plus it’s not just her that takes part in the craziness, but also a couple of the guys, and they don’t seem to have any reasons to behave that way. This banter takes away from the characters and makes them only two dimensional. We never get to see any depth and the guys in particular are complete stereotypes. To cap it all off, not much progresses in this book. The plot could fit into about half the number of pages and the rest is made up of banter.
I think I’m a bit annoyed with this book because I had high hopes for it in the beginning, but the hopes were crushed the further I read. I really wanted to enjoy this book and it had some good things going for it. Though the banter was silly it was well written. The writing style was smooth and natural and if you enjoy the kind of “craziness” employed by Brigitte, then you’ll really enjoy this book, it just wasn’t for me.
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