Review: Disappointed!!
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 10 3, 2011
I'm actually a bit leery to write a review at the moment because I just finished the book and feel as though I must have missed something. This book was all over the place! Mild spoilers to follow...I don't like to summarize books but the main story is that Clara lost her parents, lives with her Aunt and the book starts out with her mad at a friend named Eric for taking some pages from Clara's journal. Clara can't remember anything before going to live with her Aunt, so as readers we're left with very little information as to Clara's past.After Clara's Aunt is taken she goes through this big escape from the bad guys and ends up flying (without question) to Ireland with the old man she worked for in Louisiana?! Once there she sees a child in the night jumping/falling over a cliff and goes to investigate. She then follows this red caped girl into a cave and ends up in this other world. Again, not many questions run through her mind nor does she question her sanity as most would. Clara goes on to be taken by pirates, rescued by this bad guy Edmond who had her captivated for some strange reason not explained. She gets rescued by a guy named Finn, finds out she's in this parallel realm/world... and is STILL not asking questions!In the end Clara defeats the bad guy by quoting scripture and having faith in God?? I didn't understand the Biblical references in combination to the mythology. How can you believe in both and make that work?! Clara quotes Biblical scripture then goes into different realms and enters Hades?!! Explain that again?!The world building was seriously lacking!! There was so little explanations given as to what was going on it left me thinking I'd missed something. I went back so many times to read the previous pages again just to make sure I didn't accidentally miss something. The foundation for this story was not well thought out at all!I do think Mrs. Peery has talent for writing. The descriptions in the book were at times beautiful and breathtaking. The author had a way of capturing small beauties in life and nature and translated them into a beautiful description for the readers. My overall review is more like 2.5 stars but it would've been a lot higher had the story been developed more with a firmer foundation for the characters to stand on. I didn't feel at all invested in the characters, and even Clara was hard for me to relate to. I just wish there had been more thinking done before this was published because there were ideas with merit, it was just executed poorly IMO