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Title: UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1)
Author: Chanda Hahn
Published By: Chanda Hahn (2011)
Synopsis: Mina Grime is unlucky, unpopular and uncoordinated; until she saves her crush’s life on a field trip, changing her High School status from loser to hero overnight. But with her new found fame brings misfortune in the form of an old family curse come to light. For Mina is descended from the Brothers Grimm and has inherited all of their unfinished fairy tale business. Which includes trying to outwit a powerful Story from making her it’s next fairytale victim.
To break the fairy tale curse on her family and make these deadly occurrences stop, Mina must finish the tales until the very Grimm end. (Taken from Goodreads)
Review:
I have a hard time deciding what I thought about this book. While the plot looked very promising and in of itself was very interesting, it lacked so much in every other aspect that the fact it had a good plotline was almost completely irrevelent.
First of all, the grammatical issues. To say it plainly, the editing was AWFUL and it drove me absolutely nuts. It wasn’t bad enough that you couldn’t figure out what was going on, but there was an enourmous amount of missing punctuation, run-on sentences, awkwardly structured sentences, missing commas, commas where there shouldn’t be commas, typo upon typo, missing words and wrong forms of a word. I recall once instance where it was written that something was “drug” across the room—apparently an attempt at a form of drag, which should had been “dragged”. This kind of stuff filled the entire book from cover to cover and drowned out the story, making the book feel entirely amatuer and also making it nearly impossible to truly read and enjoy it.
On the same note, the story and writing weren’t all that well off, either. There were piles upon piles of irrelevent descriptions and irrevelent scenes. I say irrevelent whole heartedly. So many tangents that led nowhere and proved to be absolutely useless in moving the story forward. It was ridiculous!
The plot: while the idea, perhaps, was good and thought out, it flopped once it hit the page. Reveals that were supposed to be breathtaking weren’t done well at all, simply brushed over without emotion. Twists and plot turns weren’t explained—expecting the reader to understand while in reality, leaving the reader floundering for answers and trying to read admist their confusion. The setting changed all the time and sometimes without warning or explanation; the scenes were jumping all over the place and most of the time made no sense. Other times, the same scene dragged (or should I say, drug?) on for ever. Cliffhangers at the end of a chapter picked right back where they left off immediately upon the start of the next chapter, making for an incredibly amatuer feel.
The characters were unrealistic and kind of unknown, maybe even to the writer. Nan was incredibly hard to grasp and I don’t think I ever actually got to know her. She’s all over the place, very abstract, and often contradictory to her own character—and other times she’s so predictable she’s boring. Mina was also incredibly unrealistic as well. She had no real emotion or fear—or when she does, it’s because the boy she likes offers to drive her home in his car, and not because a random stranger attacked her in the alley. When faced with small, dramatic events, Mina’s emotions are all over the place, but when someone’s trying to kill her she walks away calm, with the only thought on her mind—you guessed it—being the boy she likes and NOTHING about the fact she almost just died. This happens reoccuringly throughout the story, and it drove me crazy: every time she escapes danger, she’s thinking about something Brody did that bothered her, and NEVER about how she almost got killed.
Overall:
To put it all in perspective and to wrap it up, this book read like a first draft of a book. I mean, the grammatical errors, the tangents, irrevelent scenes, unknown characters—it felt like a writer’s first try at getting to know her story, not like a final version of the story, almost as if the writer accidentally published the first draft and not the final one. This could’ve been a fabulous story—but as it was, I’m really not sure I appreciated it at all. The storyline was interesting enough, but was overshadowed by the other things I’ve mentioned.
Negative Content:
None.
Rating: 1.5
Recommended to: Not recommended.