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A review by tobyyy
The Year of the Beasts by Cecil Castellucci
1.0
I tried to like it. I really did. But I just couldn’t. I DNF’d around 75%.
Dual stories, one that occurs in present day without magic, and one that occurs in present day with magic. One in prose, the other in comic form. This has worked for other authors I’ve read, namely Cherie Priest, but it did not work for me in this setting.
What REALLY got me was just how much telling there was, instead of showing. “This happened. Then this happened. Then Lulu did this thing which made Tessa feel this way.” Like bruh SHOW MEEEEE. Don’t tell me to death!!
And that I was supposed to make connections between really random things. Like how Lulu grew two inches and went up two shoe sizes after kissing the boy that Tessa liked. Not sure what eerie thing I’m supposed to infer from that aside from a very clumsy way of intimating that Lulu is maturing with the onset of this relationship. But it seemed way more meaningful to Tessa than that. Ugh.
Yeah. Bizarre concept that could’ve been summarized as a “strange little book” had I actually liked it enough to persevere through the whole thing. But no. Just no. Don’t waste your time on this.
Dual stories, one that occurs in present day without magic, and one that occurs in present day with magic. One in prose, the other in comic form. This has worked for other authors I’ve read, namely Cherie Priest, but it did not work for me in this setting.
What REALLY got me was just how much telling there was, instead of showing. “This happened. Then this happened. Then Lulu did this thing which made Tessa feel this way.” Like bruh SHOW MEEEEE. Don’t tell me to death!!
And that I was supposed to make connections between really random things. Like how Lulu grew two inches and went up two shoe sizes after kissing the boy that Tessa liked. Not sure what eerie thing I’m supposed to infer from that aside from a very clumsy way of intimating that Lulu is maturing with the onset of this relationship. But it seemed way more meaningful to Tessa than that. Ugh.
Yeah. Bizarre concept that could’ve been summarized as a “strange little book” had I actually liked it enough to persevere through the whole thing. But no. Just no. Don’t waste your time on this.