Things at Fairy Tale Reform School are great. Rumpelstiltskin has been chased off, and everyone is excited that Beauty and the Beast have joined the teaching staff. Everyone, that is, except Gilly, who can’t seem to focus on anything but Anna. How is it that her sister somehow went bad and joined up with Rump? And why doesn’t anyone seem to care? Sure, the Royal Court says they’re working on it, but they’ve got exactly nothing to show for it. But when new kid Jack shows up with tales of his own family being snatched by Rump, Gilly knows she’s in good company. Jack wants answers, just like Gilly. And if the Royal Court can’t get the job done, then maybe it’s time to break some rules…
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Switched
Jen Calonita
This is the fourth book in the Fairy Tale Reform School series. And unfortunately I have not read the previous books, as usual I didn’t read too much into the book before requesting on Netgalley. It really threw you straight into the story and although it reintroduced characters it was definitely more of a jog your memory kinda intro. For the first couple of chapters I was getting the hang of who people were and what the overarching series plot was, but I do think a 11-12 year old who this book is targeting might
This is a middle-grade book, which means the writing style is much faster to read because its targeted for younger readers. This meant that I was able to read it all in one evening, it only took me approximately 2 hours in total. I do want to read more middle-grade because of this, but I do feel like it’s much harder to critique a book that is focused on a younger audience, as you do have to write them differently. For example, I was never worried about a character dying so I had less of a investment into the characters. I sometimes felt quite irritated when things were repeated a few chapters later. The majority of the book was predictable, you knew where it was heading and the ‘plot twists’ weren’t that much of a surprise.
But as it is a middle-grade it has the really good point of having morals and trying to teach kids. There’s some wonderful lessons in friendship for both new and old friends. I also liked how bullying was handled as it was actually dealt with within the book. It also emphasises teamwork and I think all these lessons are really good for young kids to learn.
I personally didn’t like the main character all that much. All she kept doing was talking about her sister being missing and needing to be saved. To the point where other people’s problems seemed lesser to her problem. And what annoyed about the plot line itself is that Anna left on her own decision, and she felt that Gilly overshadowed her. Gilly’s entire ‘I need to save her’ act just felt too much like she was trying to be the hero, which in turn would overshadow Anna again. So I just didn’t think Gilly really put much thought into what was going on, and she just wanted to break more rules, be reckless and make herself the good hero of her story. And I just do not resonate with characters that are like this.
I think the group of friends that Gilly has was nice, but I also though there were too many characters sometimes. Plus two more characters join them in this book. Obviously there’s a bias as I don’t know them from previous books, but I felt some of them did lack the personality and depth needed to differentiate them from one another. Again, this is probably because it’s a series and they’ve been fleshed out previously. But I do think that each book in a series should spend at least some time making characters have their own personalities and some kind of topic to be focused on just so we can connect with them more.
I will probably end up buying the whole series at some point because it is such a lovely premise and its a quick read for me. I also would love to learn more about the backstory that’s nudged at a little bit during this book. I only had problems with this book because it’s a middle-grade and I was reading as a reviewer who doesn’t often read younger books and so was looking at from an adults perspective. If I was in the middle-grade age bracket, I know I would really enjoy this book, and I wouldn’t have noticed problems at all.
POSITIVES
+ Good topics to teach kids. E.g. Bullying and friendships.
+ Enjoyed the premise
+ Fast pace throughout
NEGATIVES
– Predictability
– Didn’t get on with MC
I received Switched by Jen Calonita from the publisher via Netgalley. This is an unbiased and honest review
