Jen Calonita

Book Review: The Curse Breaker

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Curse Breaker
Isle of Ever #2
by Jen Calonita

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous book in the series, Isle of Ever.

After discovering that what she thought was the end of the game to win a massive inheritance was just part 1, Everly “Benny” Benedict will have to scramble to solve more clues in time. But it turns out the betrayal by her new friend was just the beginning of the adversaries she’ll be up against now.

I didn’t enjoy the previous book a whole lot—the story wasn’t particularly compelling, fantastical elements were confusing, and I am not a fan of a dead-stop cliffhanger. But I was curious enough to at least read the 2nd book, especially since I wouldn’t have to wait very long to do so. Sadly, this book had a lot of the same issues as the previous, not enough answers given, and another cliffhanger. The characters are also fairly weak. We’ve got the girl with future sight who is wise beyond her years, yet annoyingly cryptic to the point of being coy. We’ve got the mom who is far too happy to let her daughter solve this mystery that could change their lives completely alone, running around in a new town without even checking in, all so the mom can hang out with her newest boyfriend. We’ve got the kid who has basically just jumped 200 years into the future (to our time) and frankly, I think it was the wrong decision to make him a POV character, because I don’t think enough time was really given to him trying to understand this new world.

Some revelations do come out in this book, one of which I guessed way in advance, but I think the clues were intentionally dropped to allow that possibility. I don’t know what, if anything, it really means for the characters, though. And the urgency in the first book with the deadline is just wiped away in this book—extended, actually, but it still feels far too much like obvious plot contrivance for my enjoyment. In the end, I have no desire to continue on to the third book. I don’t care enough about what happens to the island or anyone who is trapped on/by it to keep reading something that I don’t really get any enjoyment out of. However, these books have a lot of 4- and 5-star reviews, so please look into those if the series interests you at all.

Thank you to Netgalley and SOURCEBOOKS Kids for providing me a copy of this book to review.

Find out more about The Curse Breaker

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: Isle of Ever

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Isle of Ever
Book #1
by Jen Calonita

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Twelve-year-old Everly Benedict (who goes by Benny) is presented with a series of clues and riddles to solve in order to inherit a large estate from an ancestor who lived 200 years ago. Since she isn’t sure how her mom is going to pay this month’s rent, it seems like an answer to all of their problems. But she only has 2 weeks to finish the game and is warned to be careful who she trusts. And soon enough, it becomes clear that there’s more than an inheritance on the line.

Right up front, whatever else I thought about this book, the ending was a huge let-down. Not just a cliffhanger, but a full-stop that I see all too often in self-published books but don’t expect in traditionally published books from established authors. As an author myself, I firmly believe that not resolving an obvious story goal within that same book is a huge no-no, and unless I seriously misjudged what Calonita intended the story goal to be here, it was definitely not fully resolved. Even the final riddle was only partially solved. And though Benny is out of time, somehow she’s going to have to play a whole new game in order to “win”? Maybe the time will be extended, but either way, the ending was just so underwhelming for me.

Up to that point, the book was okay. Not stellar, but just interesting enough to make me curious about what was going on. The story is told from Benny’s POV with journal entries from her ancestor, Evelyn Terry, thrown in throughout. Those journal entries were written in 1825, though they did not sound like that to me much at all. The main downside (other than the ending) for me is that there are a lot of fantastical elements that either don’t make sense or don’t seem consistent. And very little, if anything, is explained, though that may just go along with the lack of resolution. I don’t think we were given enough chance to feel connected to the characters in that timeline to care as much as we should have about what happened to them. And quite frankly, I didn’t feel that the catalyst for the main story-propelling incident in Evelyn Terry’s timeline had enough urgency to it. 

So in the end, will I read the next one when it comes out? Probably, since it comes out in a few months so I hopefully won’t have time to forget everything about this book before diving right in where this one left off. But do I recommend it? Well…it really depends a lot on how you feel about a lack of resolution. Once the 2nd book comes out in March, you can “binge read” them and maybe it won’t seem so bad, especially knowing that this first book will end this way. But since I don’t know if some of the unclear elements or inconsistencies will be cleared up in the 2nd book, it’s really difficult to say whether I recommend the book or series as a whole yet. Stay tuned…

Thank you to Netgalley and SOURCEBOOKS Kids for providing me a copy of this book to review.

Find out more about Isle of Ever

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!