Olivia's Books, Quotes and Opinions

My almost completed review just disappeared with an uncontrolled flick of my finger and I am too frustrated to start afresh. So, I am just going to sprout some random points that explain why I do not recommend the book and why I won't try to read anything else by the author in the future:

- The book is really short (that is reason why I finished reading the book after all), even for a fairytale retelling. Unfortunately that does not mean that the arc of suspense is higher angled. No. This story has no real climax and almost no plotline to speak of. Can somebody tell me why the North Wind sent the Winter Child to Grace and Kai? Who was the one with the ice splinter? Both? Grace? And when is it removed? Were Kai and Grace Deidre's last stop - or what?

- The book is fairytale-like in the original sense: a lot of moral finger-waggling in front of the reader's face and even more perpetual output of sayings and wise surmises about life and happiness and wishes and curses and whatnot - you know, the stuff that usually belongs on a hand-stiched kitchen towel.

- The book is one slim volume of a larger series. And in my opinion it shows. It had an unpleasant off-the-rack bytaste. I felt like the author had the assignment to complete one fairytale retelling each fortnight.

- The book has no real romance. Everyone gets his or her happily-ever-after - completely out of the blue. There weren't even the stars of a fairy's magic wand to be admired. "Poof - I am your prince. Poof - tell her you love her, but be quick about it. Kneel, all of you who want to be married. A five minute slot has just been opened for you."

- The book is poorly researched. I do know that this is a fairytale retelling and no real-world place is actually mentioned by name, but I hate half-hearted pseudo-researchers. If you are not sure, dear author, place your plot into a fantasy world and use plain English, okay? Grace and Kai have Scandinavian surnames, which fits the Danish origin. But "Grace", Grace is no Scandinavian name. If you did not like Gertrud, Mrs. Dokey, you could have searched for a softer sounding Danish name. I assure you, there are plenty. Grace speaks of her grandmother as her "oma". Oma is a German word. In Danish and Norwegian it should be "bedstemor", in Swedish it's "mormor". Well. And one last thing that came back up sour was that Kai's father worked in the coal mines and dies there. There is almost nothing to mine in Danmark apart from some clay, some minerals and a bit of oil in the North Sea. It would have been possible to shift the story to Germany, but then some other adaptions would have been necessary. The random mix annoyed me a lot.

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