Mary Botter The Cinderella

This one just really fell flat for me.

Before I continue, I'd like to point out that every other review for this book is very positive, so if you're intrigued and interested in the plot, still check it out! I wish I could have enjoyed it like these other individuals, but I simply couldn't.

Essentially, this book is about a girl, Mary Botter (it's a nickname), who is basically destined to save the world. She has a ton of friends who will also save the world. And... that's it. The vast majority of this book, up until the last two chapters I'd say, is about Botter's ‘team'. Each chapter is an introduction of a new character- or just continuing the last character's introduction- and I was just bored. I understand the need for background information in novels, especially in novels set in the far future such as this one. However, ~250 pages of a 290 page e-book dedicated to background information is simply too much. It's overkill. By the time the book started getting interesting, it was already practically over. I really hope that the next book has little to no background information and jumps immediately into the plot in order to be more compelling for readers.

For me, the writing style killed me. The words and descriptions that King uses are so nice and so flowery- something that I ordinarily adore in a book. Unfortunately, a lot of the grammar and dialogue really bothered me. In this novel, the author uses huge paragraphs. Oftentimes, several characters will speak in the same paragraph which was both confusing and made it feel like a fanfiction. I also cringed a little everytime the dialogue was introduced with the phrase “__ was like,”. I'd imagine the intent was to be conversational, however, I really did not like it. This book is written in second person POV which was irritating at first, however, I got over that irritation quickly. It's evident to me that the author tried to make this as conversational as possible. I just didn't like it personally. One last complaint I have is that it seems like there are some phrases that are included repeatedly. I believe that the following must have been used at least ten times:

“Aw,” you say? Indeed.

I just couldn't.

As far as the characters are concerned, they were okay. I didn't love any of them, but I didn't hate any of them either. I feel like I know everything about them- perhaps a little too much, in fact- but I didn't truly relate to a single one. Some of the “girl” things that Ella/Mary Botter discuss make it clear that our female protagonist was written by a male author. I'd imagine that this is something that will only improve with more writing practice.

Overall, I just didn't like this one. I had trouble getting over the grammar in many places and felt that another run-through of edits, or even by another person editing, would have improved this book greatly. I really, really hope that the next book gets the plot rolling from the start because I was just bored in this book. Best of luck to you if you choose to read this! There are plenty of other brilliant reviews singing of praise so you never know. You might love it. :)