Review ~ Tris and Izzie ~

Title: Tris and Izzie

Author: Mette Ivie Harrison

Published: 11th October 2011

By: Egmont USA

Source: netgalley

First line: Mark caught me in a big hug as I closed my locker.
Last line: My magic gave us light and his gave us speed.

Tris and Izzie is a remake of the classic tale Tristan and Isolde and based on that and the stunning cover which I absolutely fell in love with I was eager to get my hands on this book. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much where the enthusiasm ends.

As much I tried to get into reading this book I absolutely failed. I found it hard to connect with the main characters, particularly Izzie who seemed to think she was chocolate and the plot just seemed completely random.

To cut a long story short, Izzie is a witch who lives with her mother. She is in love with the very popular Mark and together they attend high school with Izzie’s best friend, Brangane, the three of them being a really close knit trio. Izzie is desperate for Brangane to have a boyfriend so she takes a love potion that her mother has created to school aiming to get Brangane and Tristan (new boy at school) to drink it thereby falling in love. Things go wrong of course and Izzie and Tris end up drinking it and falling in love. High jinks and emotional struggles ensue for a while and then out of the blue (or at least it seemed that way to me) a two-headed dog appeared...That I’m afraid to say is where I put the book down. I think I was about a quarter of the way through so I have no idea what happened at the end. No risk of spoilers here then!!

I think my biggest issue with this book is the writing style. When I’m reading I like the words to flow off the page or have some kind of punch to them. This had neither. I felt the language used was overly simplistic, almost child-like and I found myself getting more and more frustrated as I turned the pages. The way that the concept of magic is included in the book seems really rushed and lacks credibility as does everyone’s acceptance of the weird creature that just seemed to show up. IT WAS A TWO-HEADED RABID DOG PEOPLE?!

Rant over! As I said the idea behind this story is great and there are other classics which have been re-told that I have enjoyed. I’m sorry to say that this is not among them which is a shame because it had great potential.

2/5 This story has a lot of good ideas behind it – it just didn’t do it for me, sorry!