I was debating whether I should make this post or not as there are different ways to handle DNF books and there's no real agreed upon standard on how to deal with them in the book blogging world. My initial instincts were that it would be wrong to talk about I didn't even finish, but this book elicited so many strong emotions from me that I feel I have to share.
The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant
Author: Joanna Wiebe
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
To Be Published: Jan 14 2014
Publisher: BenBella Books
Source: ARC via
Netgalley
Find: Goodreads
So many secrets for such a small island. From the moment Anne Merchant arrives at Cania Christy, a boarding school for the world’s wealthiest teens, the hushed truths of this strange, unfamiliar land begin calling to her—sometimes as lulling drumbeats in the night, sometimes as piercing shrieks.
One by one, unanswered questions rise. No one will tell her why a line is painted across the island or why she is forbidden to cross it. Her every move—even her performance at the school dance—is graded as part of a competition to become valedictorian, a title that brings rewards no one will talk about. And Anne discovers that the parents of her peers surrender million-dollar possessions to enroll their kids in Cania Christy, leaving her to wonder what her lowly funeral director father could have paid to get her in… and why.
As a beautiful senior struggles to help Anne make sense of this cloak-and-dagger world without breaking the rules that bind him, she must summon the courage to face the impossible truth—and change it—before she and everyone she loves is destroyed by it.
Stopped: Page 128 out of 458 (27%)
Why I Didn't Like It:
As Emma on
Spun with Words said, the characters are half the battle. You don't have to necessarily like a character to enjoy reading a book. But if you don't enjoy
reading about the main characters, then it will be a chore to get through the book. Getting through
Anne Merchant was more like a chore and a half. Not only did I not enjoy reading about Anne and the other characters, I actually hated them to the point where they elicited rather strong feelings of anger and frustration at times. Our rather, I hated Wiebe's characterizations. Instead of seeing them as actual people, I saw Wiebe's characters more as shallow caricatures full of the worst cliches and stereotypes. Sometimes, it worked. Villicus, the headmaster of Cania Christy is sufficiently creepy and disgusting enough to play the villain with his arched eyebrows, hairy mole, and crooked brown teeth. Most of the time, the cliches and stereotypes can only go so far in creating believable, complex characters.
