Review: Tris & Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison

♥ Summary: 
A modern retelling of the German fairytale "Tristan and Isolde", Tris and Izzie is about a young witch named Izzie who is dating Mark King, the captain of the basketball team and thinks her life is going swimmingly well. Until -- she makes a love potion for her best friend Brangane and then ends up taking it herself accidentally, and falling in love with Tristan, the new guy at school.

♥ Favorite Line(s):
"A story is not always a lie."

♥ My thoughts:
I'm going to try really really really hard not to tear into Tris & Izzie, but I honestly stopped reading at page 154. And even getting there was a struggle. I hated almost every character and found myself rolling my eyes at a lot of the dialogue. I really liked the premise and was very excited to start this book as the tale of Tristan and Isolde is a favorite of mine. I was looking forward to seeing how Mette Ivie Harrison was going to transplant the story into a high school setting and can honestly say the set up was nice. But that's where my love for this ended, at the setting. Much of the backstory of the world was either crammed in in three pages and confusing or not explained at all. But none of the things I've mentioned so far were the reason I couldn't finish reading. I couldn't connect with the MC on any level. I didn't feel any sympathy for her or have any desire to see her succeed. For Christ's sake at one point she was MAULED by an ANIMAL and I still didn't care what happened to her. That's why I didn't finish Tris & Izzie. If I don't care if the protag. gets thrown off a cliff, there's something wrong.

The lovely bits>

• The transfer> I liked the idea of the original fairytale being set in a modern high school. There was a lot that could've been done with that setting and lot of places it could've gone and it was a great idea. 
• The history> Some of the original history was sprinkled in and since I'm a fan of the original, I was pleased to see that.

The not-so-lovely bits>

• The characters> Here's me being blunt and honest: I hated them.
• The dialogue> Some of the mushier bits made me cringe, but mostly it just didn't feel authentic. I am a teenager. I go to a public high school. Most of my friends and I don't speak the way the teenagers do in Tris & Izzie.
• The pacing> It was very erratic. Stop/go, stop/go, stop/go.

♥ Summing it up:

This genuinely was not a book for me. Many may enjoy the romantic aspects, but I'm not one for an overdose of that stuff.

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Happy Sunday!

"La La Lie"-Jack's Mannequin,