I'll go on record admitting that I am not a particularly rabid Jodi Picoult fan, although I have read and enjoyed several of her stories. I know she is wildly popular and an extremely talented author. I was excited to find this YA novel penned in collaboration with her teenage daughter, Samantha van Leer: Between the Lines. I'm always interested in books that re-invent fairy tales, because of my role as a stepmom and our typical featuring in such stories as monsters.
I thought the basic concept of this story was brilliant and I couldn't wait to see how it played out! I'm sad to say that the execution of such a unique idea totally fell flat. I completely lost interest about halfway through the book and indeed could not finish it. It is very rare that I fail to finish a book, especially since Amazon's samples help me weed out stories that I can tell won't hold my interest through the end, or whose authors have aggravating writing styles. I wanted to know what happened to the characters in this story, but I didn't care enough about them to waste my time completing it.
This book is promoted as a Young Adult story, but I found it to be much more juvenile. I think my 12 year old niece would enjoy it immensely, but my 16 year old niece would likely roll her eyes like I did many times.
It pains me to say it but I very much believe the only thing that got this book published in the first place was Jodi Picoult's name on it. If her daughter hopes to follow in her mother's literary footsteps she has a long way to go. I'm really glad I checked this book out from the library for free.
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