Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

2 stars -- Didn't really care for the story

I've been agonizing for weeks on how to review this book, and it's really put me off reviewing the other million books I've read since I last posted. See, I've grown to like Melina Marchetta's fiction stories. I rated Looking for Alibrandi 4 stars and Saving Francesca 5 stars. Ms. Marchetta can tell a really fabulous story, but I can't say anything about this one except, "It's boring."

The difference is that those two stories were realistic fiction, and Finnikin of the Rock is straight-out fantasy. Marchetta obviously put a lot of work into coming up with a different world with different races and languages and history, but for the life of me, I could not get into it. I thought the storytelling was so slow and boring, full of details that did not matter and that were repeated far too frequently, full of obvious foreshadowing so that I knew who was whom from the very beginning and the plot held no surprises. I was driven to distraction by the main two characters' love story. It was full of pettiness and anger, and they would ignore each other for days and then they'd be fine and unable to get enough of each other, only to take offense at the smallest unintentional slight and start the cycle all over again. I wanted to shake them both and yell, "Get over it already! It's not a big deal! We all know you're going to get together anyway!"

Now this is my person opinion. I know the book got starred reviews from Booklist and School Library Journal, so other people obviously loved it to pieces, but I just didn't. I don't feel anything but disappointment (and not to any severe degree) when I think back on this book.

So read it or don't. Obviously others have found it to their taste, but I didn't. I'd love to hear your take on it.