What the HELL was this book?

Watching Edie by Camilla Way had been on my tbr for a long time, around 4 years probably. I had picked it up in a Poundland when they still sold new books (any Brits, they now sell secondhand books, it can be a good spot to check if you’re on the skint side like moi) and for some reason just never picked it up. It was my choice in the “shortest book” slot for the Thrillerathon in February and seeing as I was late to start this readathon I decided to pick this one up.

It started out promising, I personally enjoyed Way’s writing style and the storyline was interesting. However, as the book carried on it devolved and became a lot less interesting. It also felt manipulative towards the reader, trying to make you feel for the events and the characters when the writing hadn’t been good enough and the plot hadn’t been written well enough to justify these emotions.

I struggled with my rating for this book, and I still do. I’m between a one and two star. I did enjoy certain bits and as I said, I enjoyed the writing style, which is why I bumped it up to a two star. It is, however, a badly done concept and I don’t care for it at all. I’m glad it’s off of my tbr now and I’ll likely donate it to charity at some point. Hopefully someone else can enjoy it, but I doubt it.

 

Getting Granny into the modern world

Another parody Famous Five book, slooooowly getting through all of these. I need to find the last few! This one has the five visiting their grandmother who they’ve not spoke to in a ridiculous number of years, she lives in Lancashire which is depicted as being rural and “backwards” in a tiny home.

She doesn’t have any real understanding of the Internet or its uses, so the five offer to help. And of course, everything goes wrong. This wasn’t my favourite book, I’m not entirely sure why but it just wasn’t as enjoyable as the others in this weird little series and I ended up only giving it 2 stars.

Maybe it’s because I’m from the North of England and I get fed up of it being depicted as backwards? Maybe it’s because I didn’t like how the five treated their Gran who isn’t their Gran and the actions of just everyone in this story. It just left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I definitely don’t recommend picking up this book if you’re wanting to look into the parody versions of the Famous Five books, as there are much better ones out there. But I’m still going to try and collect and read them all, as I do enjoy the nostalgia of my childhood and some of them have been entertaining.