Hello, bookworms!
Today I am here with a weird review. Let me explain: as you know, every month my friend Juls and I pick a middle grade book from our TBRs and we buddy read it together, reviewing it on our blogs afterwards. Turns out, in July we picked a young adult book instead.
In our defense, the Italian publisher has it classified as an upper middle grade, and they sell it in the Children’s section here in Italy (we have kid lit and YA separated, with YA usually closer to the adult section, in case you were wondering if it was misshelved).
So, this new chapter of the NelyaPritt’s Middle Grade Chronicles is actually not a chronicle of a middle grade, but of a YA book in which the MC drives a car, oopsie doopsie.
I hope you’ll forgive us for this mistake, but it wasn’t entirely our fault, especially since the Goodreads app for Android doesn’t let me see the tags and I only found out once I looked the book up on my laptop. The universe was conspiring against us, I’m telling you.
But now, without any further ado, let’s get this review started!
About the book
Title: Elatsoe
Series: Elatsoe #1
Author: Darcie Little Badger
Publisher: Levine Querido
Publication date: August 25, 2020
Pages: 362
Plot, as stated on Goodreads
Imagine an America very similar to our own. It’s got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream. There are some differences. This America has been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. Some of these forces are charmingly everyday, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi. But other forces are less charming and should never see the light of day. Elatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered in a town that wants no prying eyes. But she is going to do more than pry. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, and friends to tear off the mask and protect her family.
My rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Review
Now, to be start this review by being completely honest, I wasn’t in the mood for this book when Juls and I picked it as our buddy read of the month, but since there’s an Italian translation for it, and both Juls and Syl wanted to read it in Italian, I decided to give it a try.
Elatsoe has been on my TBR for the longest time, ever since before it came out, but now that I’ve read it, I don’t think I ever knew what it was about. I just trusted everyone saying that they loved it and I read it mostly because it features and asexual main character — one of the hardest rep to come by, when it’s not a contemporary book. If I had known anything about it, I would have had different expectations and maybe I would have loved it.
Not that I had clear expectations, when it came to this book, if I have to be honest. What is for sure is that I did not expect this book to be what it ended up being.
First of all, I did not care for the plot in the least. I was expecting something a bit mor lyrical, if I had to put it into words. A bit magical, but with a weird feel to it, something along the lines of the Wayward Children saga, to give you a comparison with something I have loved. Without the doors, though. Why did I expect this? No idea, maybe the cover.
For the most part, I was bored. I mean, it’s kind of a given when you don’t care about what is happening, but there was something in the pacing that just didn’t work for me. It was a book that barely managed to hold my attention, and I do believe 362 pages is just too many for the story that is being told here. However, I am clearly a voice outside the chorus.
Moreover, I also did not care for the characters, which as may you know is what makes it or breaks it for me when it comes to loving books or even just giving them a higher rating. It’s been a while since I have finished reading Elatsoe and already I have forgotten all the names of any of the characters in there, which is never a good sign, as far as I am concerned.
The writing style was okay. Not my favourite, but there was nothing really wrong with it. Instead, Syl told me that the Italian translation wasn’t very good and some passages didn’t make any sense. I didn’t have the same problem, so I believe it’s a translation problem.
I’ve recently found out that the author is coming out with a prequel to this book called Sheine Lende, and while I am vaguely intrigued by the fact that the main character is Ellie’s grandmother, I care about my mental wellbeing enough that I won’t be reading it. I will be looking out for spoilery reviews, though, because I want to know what the book is about.
So, overall Elatsoe was not a book for me. However, since there wasn’t anything actually wrong with it, and it’s mostly a me problem, I would still recommend picking it up if you think it is something that could interest you. At least there’s a bit of Apache culture in there, which is the only thing I found interesting, and I would have loved to get more.
That is going to be all for today, I will talk to you very very soon with a new review. As promised, we will be talking about One Of Us Is Next, which I finally managed to read.
La Petite Pritt 