Since I'm going to be clearing out my pages to make way for my 2015 goals and challenges, I wanted to make a master post I can go to and find all my challenges for 2014. This is mainly for my own housekeeping.
2014 Audiobook Challenge / Wrap Up Post
Bookish Bingo - Oct, Nov, Dec / Wrap Up Post
Read It Again, Sam 2014 / Wrap Up Post
Sail To The Past - 2014 History Reading Challenge / Wrap Up Post
This book was a mess for me. Some parts I hated, some parts I loved. But the thing that pulled it out for me was the ending theme: You don't NEED a man to be happy!
While I found the whole "living in 1962" idea charming, it wasn't well thought out by our heroine, Mallory. (She earns extra points for her name.) She didn't take into account having to use a computer at school or even using her alarm clock to get up.
Most of the story was nice enough, but what always gets me is a book that ends without a lot of things really getting wrapped up. A few non-closures are fine. That's reality. But when someone, like Mallory's mom, does something really stupid and selfish that hurts her kids and her husband, lies about money and then tries to play the victim; and she get nothing but a mild reprimand that barely lasts a page and is quickly forgotten....Well, I take issue. Teens aren't known to forgive so easily. I know I'm 30 and still get angry with things my mom did when I was 15. So the whole glancing-over of a pretty major plot point is what really dropped this down in rating for me. I just hated her mother and was so unhappy with nothing really happening to her.
Besides that, let's be picky: they dressed up as The Jetsons and couldn't even get the maid's name right! It's ROSY not Ruby, dummy.
Wrap Up Post for 2014 Challenge!
When I signed up for this, I thought this would be the challenge I'd go overboard on. I've always been a huge rereader and there were several series I'd been meaning to tackle.
That...didn't quite happen. Oh, I definitely read more then 16! I think I managed to do that in two months, at the longest. But by the middle of the year...I kinda dropped off. I was really working through Audiobooks and had discovered too many great new books through all you wonderful people here. So, while I reread 50+ books this year, I expected it to be so much more.
I'm glad it's not though. I've never been more adventurous then this year and have enjoyed nearly every moment. So thank you all for helping me not hit my personal goal in this one.
This book had a lot of potential. But it fell so far short of what it could have been, simply because nobody seemed to edit this. It was full of misplaced prepositions that made my English minor scream. There were question marks everywhere, in places where there clearly wasn't a question. Missing quotation marks, misspelled words, and poor sentence structures.
If only someone had proofread this!
The plot itself was dull. What looked like an epic fantasy turned into mostly a lot of explaining and not showing. Things that should have been shocking and freaky to a teenager didn't get much reaction. And the main character seemed to want to burst into tears at the slightest angry look.
This book could have been good if it had just been carried out properly.