It seems unfair that my attention was first drawn to The Romeo and Juliet Code because of its cover. No book deserves to be held responsible for its misleading jacket and Phoebe Stone’s latest is no exception. Set during the Second World War, the book looks like a rejected shot from a GAP catalog more than a historical novel (pink Converse?? Really??). When ire was aimed at the jacket early on I remember many a supporter saying, “It’s such a pity it has that cover because the story is wonderful!” Willing to give it the benefit of the doubt (after all, The Trouble with May Amelia has a similar problem and is a magnificent bit of writing) I plucked up a copy from a friend and started to read. Oh my. No book, as I say, deserves to be held responsible for the sins of its jacket, but this book has sins of its own above and beyond its packaging. Ostensibly a kind of mystery for kids, folks with a low twee tolerance would do best to steer clear of this one. It is indeed beloved in its own right but this particular reviewer found its style to be strangely grating. As historical fiction goes, this does not go to the top of my list.
Flissy has found herself unceremoniously dumped. One minute she is living happily in her flat in England with her parents Winnie and Danny (though she doesn’t much care for the bombing going on outside). Next thing she knows they’ve managed to hitch a ride on a ship bound for America and she is left in the care of an unmarried uncle, an unmarried aunt, and a grandmother, none of whom she has ever met before. Her initial homesickness and loneliness are partly appeased when she starts uncovering the secrets lurking in the house. A hitherto unknown cousin by the name of Derek is found upstairs. Uncle Gideon is receiving strange coded messages and they seem to be coming from Flissy’s Danny. And why does everyone keep talking about the whispers in the nearby town? What other secrets can one family harbor? Flissy doesn’t know but with the help of her cousin she is bound to find out the whole truth.
I have an unattractive habit that comes out whenever a book starts to grow repetitive in some way. I count. Which is to say, I count the number of times that repetitive element appears. When I read Eragon for the first time I counted how many times a chapter began with some version of “Eragon woke up” (final count: twenty-one chapters do this). In the case of The Romeo and Juliet Code my weirdness was prompted by the author’s use of the term “ever so” as in “I was ever so interested in the number of times `ever so’ appeared in this book.” There are thirty-seven moments when the phrase pops up. In two cases the phrase appears twice on a single page. Reading an advanced readers galley of the book I was convinced that this had to be a typo of some sort. Surely the author got a little carried away and the copy editor would lay down the law before publication time, yes? Apparently not. On the child_lit listserv the book’s editor spoke about the ubiqui
I too had a problem with the book, but could not put my finger on why it didn’t work for me.
Interesting review! And someday maybe you can explore the concept of “Yeah, but would a kid care?” in children’s literature. I see the point of asking it, given that almost no novel is perfect, and so we have to analyze whether a particular weakness in plot (or characterization, or whatever) in a book will really harm the reading experience for young people. But it still makes me itchy to give mistakes a pass simply because the book is for kids. There’s such a range of sophistication levels in child readers, someone is likely to be disappointed.
Interesting point! There’s “Yeah, but would a kid care” vs. “Yeah, but do we care if they don’t care?” As you say, only the best is good enough for our child readers so giving a pass, as it were, is out. At the same time, is a flaw seen by an adult important enough to steer a child towards other books that adult deems “better”? As far as I can tell, there are so many great books out there for kids, why bother with the merely okay? Which, in turn, makes you wonder why I’d bother reviewing a book that I didn’t care for in the first place. But I usually write critical reviews of titles that have gotten a lot of love out there, and this book has its legion of fans.
I didn’t have a problem with the surprise ending. I did find it rather unbelievable that she would take the surprise as well as she did. I enjoyed the book very much, but that ending threw me.
I’m right with you. This book had so many elements that made me think I would love it, but it didn’t feel authentic (Flissy’s language) or well plotted.
I’m ever so grateful for this review.
We have the book from the library right now — I’d heard good buzz, and my older daughter was drawn to the cover. But we pick a bedtime book by reading the first two paragraphs and deciding whether to continue, and neither girl was particularly drawn in by the first pages, which means that other books keep leapfrogging over this one in the queue. If history is any guide, this one will eventually go back to the library unread.