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On Orchard Road (2011)

by Elsbeth Edgar(Favorite Author)

3.73 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction

publisher

Walker Books Australia

review 1: I can tell that the author of "On Orchard Road" had a passion for her writing, and I could sort of feel it through her main character, who also happened to be a writer. She clearly had a passion for her story and the characters within, and ensured that the full cast were all accounted for and not cast aside.Regrettably, this is where the positive aspects ended for me. I found the prose very stilted and, a lot of the time, quite dull. I noted that one of the critiques that Miss Harrison (the elderly woman our main character befriends) had on the protagonist's story was that the language was too flowery. Considering the stilted and brief descriptions that appear throughout the story (though they did have their more promising moments at certain parts of the novel), I did wond... moreer if this may have been a previous critique she had on past works. The prose did seem very determined not to get too overly detailed or descriptive. Then again, it may be my personal taste--I do like more detail that actually flows in a natural manner without sounding too stilted or over-the-top. I also noticed that there were a few (literally a few, but enough to pull me out of the story) glaring grammar errors, especially with the classic you/your/you're confusion that did not make any sense at time of reading. The characters themselves were mostly non-descript and mainly one-sided without too much depth or complexity. There was the bully who only bullied because of his sick mother, the obvious love interest (I can spot them as far away as Neptune), the crotchety elderly lady who really has a heart of gold, the token disabled (it wasn't described explicitly, but it was implied) girl, the frail mother, and strict father. I think more depth to these characters beyond just one or two traits (or tokenism in the case of the disabled girl) would have improved the story as well.
review 2: I partly enjoyed this book and partly did not. It was definatley not my pick. I believe the age group for this book is 12 years old to 13 because (Jane the main character) goes through many problems of staring high-school ect. readers going through the same problems as Jane will notice a connection. The beautiful thing about this book is the main character Janeand that millions of people will feel a connection to her. less

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