Freaksville by Kitty Keswickpublisher: Leap Books
released: December 2009
paperback, 328 pages
intended audience: Young adult
rating:
Description from bn.com:
Every woman in the Maxwell family has the gift of sight. A talent sixteen year old Kasey would gladly give up. Until Kasey has a vision about Josh Johnstone, the foreign exchange student from England. The vision leads her into deep waters, a lead in a play, and into the arms of Josh. But Josh, too, has a secret. Something that could put them all in danger. To solve a mystery of a supernatural haunting, they must uncover the secrets of the haunted theater when they are trapped on the night of the full moon.
Review: It is the way of the world of reading that not every book speaks to every reader. This was very much the case for Freaksville and me. I just couldn't connect with the story and I have to admit that I just barely finished it. The story is written in a blog format, and while I think in some circumstances this format might work, for this book, I found it really sort of out of place and unbelievable. It became a major inconsistency when the main character would say "I would never tell this to anyone" and yet the entire thing is suppose to be a blog post; she has huge family secrets that she is suppose to be protecting and feelings for a boy she says she if trying to keep under wraps, and yet she writes it all on her blog for all to see---complete with comments from readers at the end of each chapter. It also bothered me that the character's age was suppose to be 16, and I would completely forget that at times because she seemed more like 13 or 14. On a good note, the main character, Kasey, and her best friend Gillie were cute and quirky and had a sweet friendship. Which brings me to the point that, although I didn't like it, I kept thinking that maybe this would be a cute read for 11-12 year olds. It had little cartoon illustrations throughout, and when I first looked through the pages on Amazon, I thought it would be a cute little addition to the story, but they quickly became distracting and alittle annoying while I was reading the book.
I really hate to give any book such an unflattering review, SO to give it a fair shot at a second chance with my blog readers, here are a few reviews from some great bloggers!
The Book Butterfly
The Book Cellar
La Femme Readers
I had this on my TBR at the start of the year, but ditched it due to negative reviews. From what you've said about the book been written in blog format and the illustrations, I don't think it would appeal to me. Then again, I did read a really good book last year that was written in blog format (Undiscovered gyrl by Allison Burnett), so if that's done well it can bee a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI think I'll give this a miss, though.