Saturday, April 6, 2013

Book Review: Epic Fail by Claire Lazebnik

THE DETAILS:
Pages: 309
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher: Harper Teen
Release Date: August 2011
Bought it on: Kindle

THE BLURB:
ill Elise’s love life be an epic win or an epic fail?

At Coral Tree Prep in Los Angeles, who your parents are can make or break you. Case in point:

As the son of Hollywood royalty, Derek Edwards is pretty much prince of the school—not that he deigns to acknowledge many of his loyal subjects.

As the daughter of the new principal, Elise Benton isn’t exactly on everyone’s must-sit-next-to-at-lunch list.

When Elise’s beautiful sister catches the eye of the prince’s best friend, Elise gets to spend a lot of time with Derek, making her the envy of every girl on campus. Except she refuses to fall for any of his rare smiles and instead warms up to his enemy, the surprisingly charming social outcast Webster Grant. But in this hilarious tale of fitting in and flirting, not all snubs are undeserved, not all celebrity brats are bratty, and pride and prejudice can get in the way of true love for only so long. 

Synopsis from Goodreads

MY REVIEW:

Lately I seem to have found myself in a bit of a contemporary reading phase and I remembered that I had this book stored on my kindle and it looked cute... 'Epic fail' is a retelling of the 'Pride and Prejudice' story we all know so well and a book that I thought would be a fun quick read. I didn't expect much more from it though.

As far as retellings go this was pretty well done. Most of the characters fitted the same bill and they were easy to recognise as their names started with the same first letter as the Jane Austen version. Each character seem to perfectly suit well, except for the mother of the girls as I thought she acted a little too intelligent compared to the old mother in the original story. I just couldn't picture this woman being a principle, but then again retellings aren't necessarily the same as the original, but I just liked the original so much...

This tale was set in LA and Derek's parents were famous, which makes sense in this story as there wasn't really another way for there to be such a difference in wealth like there was in the original story. I know that many people will find it far fetched. The thing about Derek was that I couldn't quite picture the modern Mr Darcy. I couldn't help it, but throughout the whole novel I was thinking of this guy clad in Victorian gear while everyone else was clad in mini dresses and board shorts...

As far as the actual story telling went I found that I really enjoyed it. There were some funny parts and even though the story was really cheesy at times it was one of those novels that actually makes you feel so I liked that about it. You can rewrite a great story, but you still have to do a good job to make it at least half convincing.

My main problem with the story was that there didn't seem to be much of a reference to the title (unless I missed it) and even though the title pretty much explains itself I think it would have tied in so much better. Secondly, I thought the ending was a bit anti-climatic. I thought maybe they got together too quickly? and, I don't know it just panned out there wasn't really any huge declaration of love like I was expecting...

Overall, I think 4 out of 5 stars. It was entertaining, but I was really disappointed by the ending. It you like Jane Austen retellings or other contemporary novels I think you''d enjoy this, but I wouldn't encourage you to have it in your high priority end of you TBR or anything...

Your Favourite Blogger,
Natalie

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Maybe the anti-climatic endings of retellings of P&P is endemic. I felt completely the same way you seem to feel about this book when I finished Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

The cover of this is super cute!

Rie @ Mission to Read

Unknown said...

This is on my "TBR FOR THE SUMMER ON THE BEACH WHILE IM TANNING LIST" list. It looks cute, and light, and I've read pretty good reviews on it!

Lisa
turningpages94.blogspot.com

Natalie_vintage_girl said...

It would definitely be a good read for a day at the beach :-)