Monday, March 19, 2012

Review: The Académie

Title: The Académie
Author: Susanne Dunlap
Published: February 28, 2012
Source: eGalley

Synopsis:
Eliza Monroe—daughter of the future president of the United States—is devastated when her mother decides to send her to boarding school outside of Paris. But the young American teen is quickly reconciled to the idea when—ooh, la-la!—she discovers who her fellow pupils will be: Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Josephine Bonaparte; and Caroline Bonaparte, youngest sister of the famous French general. It doesn't take long for Eliza to figure out that the two French girls are mortal enemies—and that she's about to get caught in the middle of their schemes.
Loosely drawn from history, Eliza Monroe's imagined coming of age provides a scintillating glimpse into the lives, loves, and hopes of three young women during one of the most volatile periods in French history. 
Review:
I got 70 pages in and I gave up. My attention was grabbed by the synopsis, but it wasn't kept with the writing. I thought this was going to be a good book, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

Cover:
The cover describes the book perfectly. This cover is exactly what the book is about. It shows how the girl really are.

Writing/Plot:
I didn't get very far, but the plot was sort of boring. I wasn't interested in the story line. It just seemed like nothing was going to happen in the 300-something pages and I didn't want to read about nothing.
The book was actually very well written. There was some formatting errors, but other than that, nothing was wrong with the writing. It was written in older writing though and that was a little difficult to understand, plus half of it was in French and wasn't translated.

Characters:
Eliza was very boring. She was all about image it seemed. Very self-adsorbed and about who she is seen with. Sure that is my take on her, but she was still undecided when I put the book down.
There is Hortense, and she seems very nice. She doesn't seem to care about what goes on, as long as she doesn't get in trouble for it and everything is safe in her world.
But Caroline is the most self-adsorbed of them all. She wants to have everyone under her control and if she doesn't have it then, well, she's not a very happy camper.

All in All:
I wasn't into this book. All the girls seemed self-possessed and pompous. It wasn't the book for me. 2 out of 5 Tacos!

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