Rate this book

Finding Ruby Starling (2014)

by Karen Rivers(Favorite Author)

3.78 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0545534798 (ISBN13: 9780545534796)

languge

English

genre

Middle Grade & Children's

publisher

Arthur A. Levine Books

review 1: Finding Ruby Starling by Karen Rivers was overall a very interesting read. Told completely by emails and other computer data, I was given a good grasp for the characters, but I couldn’t truly connect or relate. The thing is it seemed very unrealisitic to me to be told in all emails. I loved the writer’s creativity at making it an all-email-told story, but sometimes it just seemed unrealistic, such as when her parents email her from downstairs, “Come down, honey. Your ice cream’s melting. We have something to talk about,” and she responds, “I’m coming down. Don’t let the dog eat my ice cream….” and goes on for seven more sentences. Or when she relates an entire conversation of her parents, word for word, from memory to Ruby in an email or vice versa. Sti... morell, it was generally very well done. The story is this: Ruth, age 12, finds pictures of herself online—except her in different places, wearing different things. She locates this person as a British girl named Ruby who has her same birthday and looks exactly like her. Translation? She’s found a long-lost twin!I really liked the way this storyline developed between Ruth and Ruby, trying to figure out the mystery behind the seperation. When Ruth mentions it to her adopted parents, I felt their reaction was written perfectly, with worried for their daughter, who’s trying to locate, in a way, her birth family. Ruth did overdo it a lot, but it is all emails and emails are going to have sentences in all caps, texting shorthand, and the such, so what else can you expect?For positive elements, the whole interaction between Ruby and Ruth was very well written. I had to keep reading to find out what happened—how did they get seperated? Why are they not together? Will they end up together? Once I discovered the answers, I will mention they did fulfill my expectations and were well explained.On the other hand, I did not like the email idea in the sense that it skimmed over Ruth’s visit to Ruby and I was annoyed that such an important scene got barely two emails about it, considering the rest of the events that happened got almost too many emails. Also, I was not very satisified with the ending and how it all turned out. It was written well, but I did not like how the story itself ended, for reasons I’ll leave out so I don’t have any spoilers. There were references to Buddism—not that many, but there were some, as our main character’s dad was a Buddhist—and despite the fact it didn’t dive too deep, bothered me to some extent. Overall, it was a pretty good read. I doubt I’ll read it again, but it was fun while it lasted. 3.5 stars.
review 2: Grade: DNFRelease date: August 26, 2014This e-galley was provided by Arthur A. Levine Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.When did I stop reading?: 82% into my e-galleyThe Short Review: Others may enjoy, but the formatting was wonky in my e-galley, which made it hard to follow at times, due to the nonlinear narration. As the book progressed, I grew bored.The Long Review: Finding Ruby Starling has a cool premise, I'll give it that. But it involved a ton of British slang and teen slang that apparently I'm not hip enough to know. I seriously started wishing for a glossary. After DNFing another middle grade novel recently in part because of all of the ridiculous slang, I'm starting to wonder if it's common to all contemporary middle grade these days. I found Ruth to be overly chatty and both girls shared details in their emails that I would never share with someone who's technically a complete stranger, despite being long-lost twin sisters. Their birth mother was a stereotypical mess, and all three parents were as obnoxious as their daughters. I couldn't bring myself to care for any of the characters. *sigh* I'm starting to think I can't enjoy middle grade anymore, which really stinks, because it's a good genre. I'm a quick reader, so if it takes me longer than 2-3 days to read a book (especially MG), then I'm either extremely busy or not enjoying the book. In this case, it was a combination of both.The Verdict: Maybe this book just wasn't for me? Hopefully others enjoy it because I certainly couldn't. less

Download links for: Finding Ruby Starling

Advertising