"Good writing is clear thinking made visible," -Bill Wheeler
As you all know, I love myself a good self-published novel, supporting indie authors, all that jazz. But what I love even more is critiquing story and execution.
And that's exactly what we're going to be doing today.
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You'll Be Like Faye is a middle grade novel by J. C. Buchanan. Buy and read the synopsis to You'll Be Like Faye here!
Disclaimer: I was sent this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Spoilers, duh.
The Bad
1. Carousel Dialogue
This was You'll Be Like Faye's largest flaw. First, let's define the purpose of dialogue in a story. Dialogue is the spoken words that characters actually say out loud, and the purpose of this dialogue is like anything else in a story: it furthers the plot along and reveals aspects of characters.
However, the dialogue in You'll Be Like Faye rarely adheres to this accepted definition. Much of the dialogue in YBLF doesn't serve much purpose, if at all. The menial dialogue causes scenes that should have been over a half a page ago to drag on. Story beats and defining character traits get repeated over and over through unnecessary dialogue.
Instead of spending her reader's precious time by deepening the relationships or characterization, much of the dialogue is spent on reiterating already established character traits and story elements. Buchanan attempts to make this dialogue plucky and witty, however, no new information is being presented, so the reader just ends up disregarding the conversation.
Another element to this systematic problem is that many conversations that would happen in real life - like, what we need at the grocery store, joking between friends - which aren't bad conversations on their own, but in fiction, these things are omitted because they don't actually add anything to the progression of the story or character development.
2. Some nitpicky things.
These next few are less systematic problems, and more nitpicky things that would have improved my overall enjoyment.
Brittney was extraordinarily underdeveloped, and I wanted to see much more from her. I suppose she wasn't supposed to be, but the plot kicks itself into motion because of her arrival, and the synopsis indicated that Brittney was an integral part of the story. However, there is very little time spend with her, and that created a disconnect, and almost a focus vacuum in the story. I saw so much potential to develop Brittney and her relationship with Faye/Heather, but there just wasn't much there. If Buchanan had developed this relationship, there would have been a stronger emotional center to the story, and the reader would have been able to root for Brittney as well as Faye.
My other nitpick is how the story handled the plot. Surely, Faye's parents would serve jail time for child abduction, as well as have their own biological children taken away by social services. I would have liked to see more of the consequences of the reveal at the end, as this would have grounded the story in reality. Twelve year old Faye has just had her entire world turned on it's head, which will most definitely cause psychological problems for not only Faye/Heather, but her whole family. I'm just not sure I liked the light take on such dark and destroying subject matter such as child abduction, despite this book being middle grade.
The Good
1. Story Conventions
The prose, if a bit lackluster at times, is clean and effective. If there were any errors, they didn't stick out to me and didn't detract from my enjoyment of the story. The characters, aside from Brittney, were fun and adequately developed. The suburban setting, as well as the development of the mystery - albeit a bit predictable - were effective and kept me engaged.
Overall, You'll Be Like Faye isn't a book I would normally read, and that probably affected my enjoyment of it. However, I can't deny that, despite it's flaws, You'll Be Like Faye is a solid middle grade novel that doesn't shy away from some darker subject matter.
Objective Rating: 7/10
Enjoyment Level: 6.5/10
~The WordShaker
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