Rereading my review of Prickwillow Place, I wondered why it had been marketed to MG because the prose was at times "utterly turgid." (Wowwww, 2014 me. Wow.) I recall being mildly concerned that the girls MUST have known they wouldn't get away with anything, but by the middle, when they started to connect more to each other, and the reasons behind WHY they were doing things, I felt the novel hit its stride.
I have, to my horror, discovered Worldle... and I am SO very bad at geography I feel like I *ought* to play it...
My sister LOVES Worldle and is fantastic at it; I am TRASH.
Prickwillow, though... yeah. I have a hard time picturing many of my middle grade readers—regardless of age—wading through the first half to finally get to the point* where it picks up. And, yeah: It's one thing for the girls to half-fantasize/half-panic and bury bodies in the garden in the hopes of living together forever, but it's another to rely on plotting like that when the leaders of the group are characterized as being logical and forward-thinking and so on. I don't know, I had a difficult time reconciling their actions with their personalities, I guess?
Okay, WEIRD!!! The reviewer liked the nonsense shenanigans... better?! I remember thinking that had I read that as a middle grader it would have given me profound anxiety... A little was fun, but it just kept GOING. It was approaching farce, which...idk, maybe some middle graders are totally into.🤷🏾
Oh, I *totally* felt like it was in full farce territory before the characters had time to breathe and become more than their labels—and I often like farce, but for me, it's more successful when you *already know* the characters and then see them progressively react in more and more outrageous ways (versus hardly knowing them at all and seeing them act like that). Example: The episode of Frasier in the ski lodge.
I'm starting to think that all this was why I almost bounced out of the book, thank you so so much for talking this out with me!! <3 <3 <3
Rereading my review of Prickwillow Place, I wondered why it had been marketed to MG because the prose was at times "utterly turgid." (Wowwww, 2014 me. Wow.) I recall being mildly concerned that the girls MUST have known they wouldn't get away with anything, but by the middle, when they started to connect more to each other, and the reasons behind WHY they were doing things, I felt the novel hit its stride.
I have, to my horror, discovered Worldle... and I am SO very bad at geography I feel like I *ought* to play it...
My sister LOVES Worldle and is fantastic at it; I am TRASH.
Prickwillow, though... yeah. I have a hard time picturing many of my middle grade readers—regardless of age—wading through the first half to finally get to the point* where it picks up. And, yeah: It's one thing for the girls to half-fantasize/half-panic and bury bodies in the garden in the hopes of living together forever, but it's another to rely on plotting like that when the leaders of the group are characterized as being logical and forward-thinking and so on. I don't know, I had a difficult time reconciling their actions with their personalities, I guess?
*Or at least the point where I felt that it picked up; I looked up the review at Kirkus and it sounds like that reviewer felt that the first half was the strongest/most interesting part??? https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/julie-berry/scandalous-sisterhood-prickwillow-place/
Okay, WEIRD!!! The reviewer liked the nonsense shenanigans... better?! I remember thinking that had I read that as a middle grader it would have given me profound anxiety... A little was fun, but it just kept GOING. It was approaching farce, which...idk, maybe some middle graders are totally into.🤷🏾
Oh, I *totally* felt like it was in full farce territory before the characters had time to breathe and become more than their labels—and I often like farce, but for me, it's more successful when you *already know* the characters and then see them progressively react in more and more outrageous ways (versus hardly knowing them at all and seeing them act like that). Example: The episode of Frasier in the ski lodge.
I'm starting to think that all this was why I almost bounced out of the book, thank you so so much for talking this out with me!! <3 <3 <3