Oh, Jodi Picoult. There's a reason most authors of adult fiction don't switch to writing novels for children or young adults, and vice versa.
There's also a reason teenagers aren't usually published authors.
Jodi Picoult was once one of my favorite authors, starting roughly around the time My Sister's Keeper became popular. Her books were always well-written, if not a bit formulaic (the standard hundred-page courtroom battle three-quarters of the way through), and well-researched (though her tackling of a Big Issue each time around became, for me, rather tiresome). I'd heard about this book when it came out, and it sounded fun from the synopsis, especially because Picoult had co-written it with her (teenaged) daughter. I didn't expect to flat-out hate it. However, only a few pages in, my skin startled to prickle and crawl. Trying to suppress the feeling, I put the book aside until the next morning. Yet still, the more I read, the more my skin crawled – crawled until it roiled with loathing.
Here's the summary I snagged off Barnes & Noble:
What happens when happily ever after…isn’t?
Delilah is a bit of a loner who prefers spending her time in the school library with her head in a book—one book in particular. Between the Lines may be a fairy tale, but it feels real. Prince Oliver is brave, adventurous, and loving. He really speaks to Delilah.
And then one day Oliver actually speaks to her. Turns out, Oliver is more than a one-dimensional storybook prince. He’s a restless teen who feels trapped by his literary existence and hates that his entire life is predetermined. He’s sure there’s more for him out there in the real world, and Delilah might just be his key to freedom.
Delilah and Oliver work together to attempt to get Oliver out of his book, a challenging task that forces them to examine their perceptions of fate, the world, and their places in it. And as their attraction to each other grows along the way, a romance blossoms that is anything but a fairy tale.I'm going to try not being scathing. We'll see how that goes. Spoilers ahead.
