Summary
"Georgina Fernweh waits with growing impatience for the tingle of magic in her fingers—magic that has been passed down through every woman in her family. Her twin sister, Mary, already shows an ability to defy gravity. But with their eighteenth birthday looming at the end of this summer, Georgina fears her gift will never come.
No one on the island of By-the-Sea would ever call the Fernwehs what they really are, but if you need the odd bit of help—say, a sleeping aid concocted by moonlight—they are the ones to ask.No one questions the weather, as moody and erratic as a summer storm.
No one questions the (allegedly) three-hundred-year-old bird who comes to roost on the island every year.
When tragedy strikes, what made the Fernweh women special suddenly casts them in suspicion. Over the course of her last summer on the island—a summer of storms, of love, of salt—Georgina will learn the truth about magic, in all its many forms."
3.5 stars ⭐⭐⭐✨
This book was very different from what I had expected it to be. I enjoyed reading it, but the writing style took some getting used to. I liked the second half of it, though.
The writing was rather informal, and I didn't mind that, but there were a lot of brackets and long winding sentences. It was written in the way people speak, and that sort of made sense because the book was narrated in first-person.
Some events were really weird and left me confused as to what exactly was happening there-
"She took a big swig and then handed it to me, shaking her head from side to side like a dog, with her tongue hanging out and everything."
There were also some inconsistencies in the writing. In the beginning, the author had made it clear that the girls' rooms did not have locks-
"She ignored me when I knocked on her door and even though our bedrooms didn’t have locks, I left her alone."
And yet, later somebody locks Mary's room?
"[The character] shut the door and locked it"
I also couldn't figure out which era they lived in. Sometimes it sounded like an old land, without telephones, but while leaving, Georgina promises to call?
The small island was described well enough, but some parts of it felt very unrealistic. All the girls had long hair, allegedly because their one hairdresser was hard to locate and she did not like cutting people's hair. I also didn't understand why they insisted on having a postman, and the boy living down the road had to post letters to Mary when it was less than a ten-minute walk to the girls' house.
There wasn't much character development either, but the book was short so it didn't matter. The narration style was similar throughout, and there were instances when you could see bits of Georgina's personality.
Mary felt like a distant presence in her life. The little things bothered me- Georgina saying Mary wore 'a' certain dress or 'a' pair trousers instead of the clothes sounding like something she'd seen before. I'm not saying Georgina has to have every piece of her sister's closet memorised, but occasional familiarity wouldn't have hurt. They didn't feel like they were close to each other, though they were supposed to be.
I hadn't expected much from the plot, and the book surprised me on that front. The story really picked up in the latter part, and it went from a usual seaside romance to something of a detective mystery. Prue, Georgina's love interest, wasn't that much of a main character. Georgina's friendships and relationship with her family were given equal importance. The book was fast-paced, and as such a lot of characters and information could be introduced alongside.
The book had a spooky atmosphere, and the author developed that well. Mary had been creeping me out from the start, but rather than throw me off, it was nice that the eerieness was ingrained in her personality.
No comments:
Post a Comment