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frannieman's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
brandypainter's review
4.0
3.5 stars
This was a really fun find. I didn't realize Foxlee had a new book out this year until I found it at the library. The plot moves quickly and doesn't leave much room for character development so sometimes I was disbelieving at how fast Annabel embraced her "destiny" and attacked her quest. Annabel is sent to her great aunts shop in the not so fabulous part of London when her mother suddenly needs to go abroad. While with her aunts, Annabel discovers she is a witch considered "a most magical girl" destined to save magic kind from an evil dark wizard. It goes along like standard MG fantasy fare but I do like that Foxlee subtly twists the chosen one trope.
This was a really fun find. I didn't realize Foxlee had a new book out this year until I found it at the library. The plot moves quickly and doesn't leave much room for character development so sometimes I was disbelieving at how fast Annabel embraced her "destiny" and attacked her quest. Annabel is sent to her great aunts shop in the not so fabulous part of London when her mother suddenly needs to go abroad. While with her aunts, Annabel discovers she is a witch considered "a most magical girl" destined to save magic kind from an evil dark wizard. It goes along like standard MG fantasy fare but I do like that Foxlee subtly twists the chosen one trope.
smitchy's review
3.0
So I read this one as it was mentioned in one of the many articles I am reading for my teaching degree with the opening paragraph being used as an exemplar for "setting". It sounded good so I immediately borrowed the audio edition and got listening.
The story itself is totally fine - young spoiled girl discovers she is from a magical family and then suddenly has to save "all of good magic" with the help of some reluctant new friends. She discovers she is more capable than she ever imagined.
My issue with the book is with the imagery used - particularly in the context of a classroom environment - Our young heroine, Annabelle, is white, blond and pretty (multiple characters remark her prettiness). Our antagonist, Mr Angel, is tall, creepy and "crooked" (I assume that means hunchbacked or just not standing upright). He is also white (Or I assumed him to be as it is never explicitly stated - unlike the heroine- but as the book itself is set in London in the later part of the 1800s). But then he raises "shadowlings", brings darkness has a black wand made from ebony. While Annabelle is is working for the "the great and benevolent magical society" comprised of "good", if mostly ancient, magicians and is sent for the "white wand" and who in spite of being clueless, a bit dense, and (IMO) a bit blank as a character, everyone ends up just loving.
Now, I don't want people to start hating on this book specifically; The black =evil and white = good is not at all an uncommon trope in fantasy (its used in Lord of the Rings and many other stories; If you watch Disney movies they use the same themes in visual cues to communicate character) but it was mentioned so frequently and was so prevalent in this story I really struggled with it. Especially thinking about if or how I would use this text in a classroom. If it was used, how could I start to have a conversation with primary school aged children about the racial undertones and subconscious racial themes in literature. I am giving the author the benefit of the doubt and assuming that she meant no more with her text than the physical absence of light and the use of a common literary device.
Nothing would be lost from this story if the bad guy raised grey or purple shadows and had a wand made from purple crystal or if the "good" wand was green or silver and made from unicorn farts. Thinking about this book in the mindset of a (learning to be) primary grade teacher with all of the many things we are supposed to be teaching, including helping kids to love and accept themselves and be proud of their racial background and diversity, if they hear in literature that black =evil, even if it is only in a fantasy story, then at some level all kids (regardless of their own skin colour) start to make subconscious connections.
These are things I am becoming more aware of and it is a process. I'm not hating on this particular book, like I said this is a very common descriptive device that is so ingrained into media of all forms we all recognise it instantly but I don't think I'll be using it (or any other book that uses it) in a classroom unless I am confident and competent to have these conversations. In the meantime I will practice by having these conversation with the adults and kids in my life.
The story itself is totally fine - young spoiled girl discovers she is from a magical family and then suddenly has to save "all of good magic" with the help of some reluctant new friends. She discovers she is more capable than she ever imagined.
My issue with the book is with the imagery used - particularly in the context of a classroom environment - Our young heroine, Annabelle, is white, blond and pretty (multiple characters remark her prettiness). Our antagonist, Mr Angel, is tall, creepy and "crooked" (I assume that means hunchbacked or just not standing upright). He is also white (Or I assumed him to be as it is never explicitly stated - unlike the heroine- but as the book itself is set in London in the later part of the 1800s). But then he raises "shadowlings", brings darkness has a black wand made from ebony. While Annabelle is is working for the "the great and benevolent magical society" comprised of "good", if mostly ancient, magicians and is sent for the "white wand" and who in spite of being clueless, a bit dense, and (IMO) a bit blank as a character, everyone ends up just loving.
Now, I don't want people to start hating on this book specifically; The black =evil and white = good is not at all an uncommon trope in fantasy (its used in Lord of the Rings and many other stories; If you watch Disney movies they use the same themes in visual cues to communicate character) but it was mentioned so frequently and was so prevalent in this story I really struggled with it. Especially thinking about if or how I would use this text in a classroom. If it was used, how could I start to have a conversation with primary school aged children about the racial undertones and subconscious racial themes in literature. I am giving the author the benefit of the doubt and assuming that she meant no more with her text than the physical absence of light and the use of a common literary device.
Nothing would be lost from this story if the bad guy raised grey or purple shadows and had a wand made from purple crystal or if the "good" wand was green or silver and made from unicorn farts. Thinking about this book in the mindset of a (learning to be) primary grade teacher with all of the many things we are supposed to be teaching, including helping kids to love and accept themselves and be proud of their racial background and diversity, if they hear in literature that black =evil, even if it is only in a fantasy story, then at some level all kids (regardless of their own skin colour) start to make subconscious connections.
These are things I am becoming more aware of and it is a process. I'm not hating on this particular book, like I said this is a very common descriptive device that is so ingrained into media of all forms we all recognise it instantly but I don't think I'll be using it (or any other book that uses it) in a classroom unless I am confident and competent to have these conversations. In the meantime I will practice by having these conversation with the adults and kids in my life.
lmn9812's review
5.0
LOVE! Magic & broomsticks & friendship and a great villain. Great follow up from Ophelia & the Marvelous Boy. Proper review to come when I can get my words out right!
shahdhazem's review
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
ashleylm's review against another edition
2.0
Oh, so frustrating! It began with some promise, but never developed into anything remotely engaging.
1. The main plot thrust is a journey through a magical realm, the least interesting magical realm yet set down in fiction--the lack of description is palpable, as if the author expected each location to be announced via full-colour double-page spread (which never materialized) and didn't want to compete with the image. There's a lake, for instance, and apparently it's astonishing, but all we as readers get is it's dark and hard to see the other side of. Unlike the rich sense of journey that one gets as early as The Hobbit, this story goes nowhere, other than from one uninvolving place to the next.
2. The main character is the main character for no particular reason, has become the chosen one because she's the youngest, and yet none of the elder magic users in the story had thought to cultivate her ahead of time? And she's generally unlikable, except when she improves for no apparent reason. (One waits for a character-testing moment, a sudden realisation, a propulsive feeling, but no).
3. I kept waiting for a subsidiary character, who seemed the most interesting person in these pages, to turn out to be the true hero (she could be sort of a Sam Gamgee type) but no, she got worse and worse as the story went out.
4. Don't get me started about how draggy and uninvolving the large middle was. From descent into the world below right through to meeting the trolls, it's eminently skipable.
5. Constant cutting back to the one-dimensional dull bad guy, doing the same thing and thinking the same thoughts as last time, as if Ed Wood had only managed to get a few shots of Bela Lugosi before his death and was forced to reuse them over and over. And he's bad because he's bad, so there's that.
6. No surprises ever. If it's foretold that the Cup of Pure Wonderfulness will cause Evil to melt, then the Cup of Pure Wonderfulness will cause Evil to melt, yawn. No twists, no turns, nothing, as if intentionally written for people who are a bit nervous about, you know, plot.
I don't get why there was a need for this book (i.e. why it was accepted for publication).
Grammar seemed correct, so not 1 star (that's reserved for exceptional poor writing, not simply unexceptional, dull texts).
*UPDATED 24 Feb 2020 ... to note that it's also completely unmemorable. Even my reading of my own review failed to jog any remembrance of this book. After perusing the description and some other reviews, a bit of it's come back to me, but ... yikes. That's how dull I found it (not necessarily how bad I found it--some of my most memorable experiences are reading exceptionally terrible things).
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
1. The main plot thrust is a journey through a magical realm, the least interesting magical realm yet set down in fiction--the lack of description is palpable, as if the author expected each location to be announced via full-colour double-page spread (which never materialized) and didn't want to compete with the image. There's a lake, for instance, and apparently it's astonishing, but all we as readers get is it's dark and hard to see the other side of. Unlike the rich sense of journey that one gets as early as The Hobbit, this story goes nowhere, other than from one uninvolving place to the next.
2. The main character is the main character for no particular reason, has become the chosen one because she's the youngest, and yet none of the elder magic users in the story had thought to cultivate her ahead of time? And she's generally unlikable, except when she improves for no apparent reason. (One waits for a character-testing moment, a sudden realisation, a propulsive feeling, but no).
3. I kept waiting for a subsidiary character, who seemed the most interesting person in these pages, to turn out to be the true hero (she could be sort of a Sam Gamgee type) but no, she got worse and worse as the story went out.
4. Don't get me started about how draggy and uninvolving the large middle was. From descent into the world below right through to meeting the trolls, it's eminently skipable.
5. Constant cutting back to the one-dimensional dull bad guy, doing the same thing and thinking the same thoughts as last time, as if Ed Wood had only managed to get a few shots of Bela Lugosi before his death and was forced to reuse them over and over. And he's bad because he's bad, so there's that.
6. No surprises ever. If it's foretold that the Cup of Pure Wonderfulness will cause Evil to melt, then the Cup of Pure Wonderfulness will cause Evil to melt, yawn. No twists, no turns, nothing, as if intentionally written for people who are a bit nervous about, you know, plot.
I don't get why there was a need for this book (i.e. why it was accepted for publication).
Grammar seemed correct, so not 1 star (that's reserved for exceptional poor writing, not simply unexceptional, dull texts).
*UPDATED 24 Feb 2020 ... to note that it's also completely unmemorable. Even my reading of my own review failed to jog any remembrance of this book. After perusing the description and some other reviews, a bit of it's come back to me, but ... yikes. That's how dull I found it (not necessarily how bad I found it--some of my most memorable experiences are reading exceptionally terrible things).
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
ari_reading_'s review against another edition
3.0
I read this a long time ago and decided to reread this. I do Kind of wish we got to find out more about Kitty.
littleelfman's review against another edition
5.0
This is a beautifully written most magical adventure. I particularly liked the way that Annabel, who was never trained in magic, gradually learns things for herself, never getting them 100% right the first time until she's ready to.
lian_tanner's review against another edition
5.0
Gorgeously written with a bold use of language and a gripping story. Annabel is such a great character, trying so hard to cling to the world she knows, and being dragged willy nilly away from it. The moment when she begins to embrace her new life and her new skills is wonderful.
thedizzyreader's review against another edition
3.0
Very fast paced fantasy adventure with a hint of mystery (who was Annabell Grey's real father? why is Mr. Angel so evil?). Could have gone for more world building and some more answers.