Released: May 13th, 2010
Publisher: Speak
Age Group: Young Adult
***2010 Debut Author Challenge
Overall Rating: 3 stars
~~~16 year old Maggie Bennet's life is in tatters. Her mother has disappeared, her father has dragged Maggie away from their elegant Newport home, off on some made excursion to Yellowstone in Montana. Torn from the only life she's ever known, Maggie is furious and devastated by her father's betrayal. But when she arrives, she finds herself drawn to the frustratingly stubborn, handsome Tom Rowland, the son of a park geologist, and to the wild romantic beauty of Yellowstone itself. And as Tom and the promise of freedom capture her heart, Maggie is forced to choose between who she is and who she wants to be ~~~
Time for the Review
**Plot: Im a big fan of time period dramas in both books and movie so when I found out this was set in 1904 I was really excited. But when I started to read it I was disappointed. The plot was really kind of all over the place. The character kept changing her mind about what she wanted to do and I was kinda bored at some points.
**Pacing: The pacing was actually very good. The character growth was steady and realistic and the realization of what happened to her mother was realistic as well. Although her attraction to Tom and sudden change of heart from Edward was really sudden and I didn't really like that.
**Characters: I really did not like the main character but I think that was the point. She was a snob and really selfish and shallow but over time she slowly (very slowly) got better. Also, she switched back and forth rather dramatically between wanting to marry for love, wanting to marry a rich man, and wanting to find her mom. Tom was kind of annoying because he bounced back and forth really quickly between being nice and being a jerk and just being weird. He also had some selfish tendencies. The other characters were realistic and constant which i was happy about. The "bad guy" or the closest character to it was really nasty and i could visualize him well so there was a very realistic "bad guy".
**Writing: Description wise the writing was very good. She had some brilliant ways of describing the geysers and the landscape. Although, there were a couple things here and there that confused me. In the beginning Maggie was going back and forth between flashbacks and what was happening in the present and (for me at least) it was difficult to distinguish which was which until she stated a specific aspect about what was going on.
***Overall the reason why I didn't like this book was I couldn't relate to the character. She really bugged me in how selfish she was and sometimes I thought she was really stupid in what she would say. Also, there really wasn't much romance between Tom and her in my opinion. Plus she was really inconsistent and unrealistic in what she wanted and in the way she treated and thought of her mother. Even though I love time period dramas (i'm a big fan of Jane Austen) I was really disappointed in this book. The ending got better and more things began to happen and Maggie became a better character but up till then I had a really hard time getting through the book.
~~~~~Sorry it took me so long to put up this review. My internet has been down for the past week. But now that it's back I'll make up for it with a lot of reviews. :) ~~~~~~~~~~
