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13 Little Blue Envelopes - Maureen Johnson
Blurb: If your free-spirited aunt left you 13 little blue envelopes: Would you follow the directions? Would you travel around the world? Would you open the envelopes one by one? Inside envelope 1 is money and instructions to buy a plane ticket. Inside envelope 2 are directions to a specific London flat. Inside envelope 3 tells Ginny: Find a starving artist. Because of envelope 4, Ginny and a playwright/theif/man-about-town called Keith go to Scotland together, with disastrous - though really romantic - results. But will she ever see him again? Everything about Ginny will change this summer, and it's all because of the 13 little blue envelopes...
My thoughts: This book was an easy read and I got through it in three days. The story was enjoyable, if not entirely believable and I feel the plot could've likely been developed further. While the book was fundamentally good, I had a number of issues with it. Firstly, the book had a range of British characters, few of whom actually used words and phrases we would say (e.g. 'ladybugs' instead of 'ladybirds', 'pants' instead of 'knickers'). While this seems minor, it is an irritating habit I have seen in a lot of books. Another issue I had was a failure to fact check - you don't need to marry someone in the UK for health insurance, Copenhagen does not have "midnight sun" and it is near impossible to get to Edinburgh from London in four hours on a British train system. These issues spoiled the book for me, as they just kept occurring. Overall an OK read, but too many issues to make it worthwhile.
Blurb: If your free-spirited aunt left you 13 little blue envelopes: Would you follow the directions? Would you travel around the world? Would you open the envelopes one by one? Inside envelope 1 is money and instructions to buy a plane ticket. Inside envelope 2 are directions to a specific London flat. Inside envelope 3 tells Ginny: Find a starving artist. Because of envelope 4, Ginny and a playwright/theif/man-about-town called Keith go to Scotland together, with disastrous - though really romantic - results. But will she ever see him again? Everything about Ginny will change this summer, and it's all because of the 13 little blue envelopes...
My thoughts: This book was an easy read and I got through it in three days. The story was enjoyable, if not entirely believable and I feel the plot could've likely been developed further. While the book was fundamentally good, I had a number of issues with it. Firstly, the book had a range of British characters, few of whom actually used words and phrases we would say (e.g. 'ladybugs' instead of 'ladybirds', 'pants' instead of 'knickers'). While this seems minor, it is an irritating habit I have seen in a lot of books. Another issue I had was a failure to fact check - you don't need to marry someone in the UK for health insurance, Copenhagen does not have "midnight sun" and it is near impossible to get to Edinburgh from London in four hours on a British train system. These issues spoiled the book for me, as they just kept occurring. Overall an OK read, but too many issues to make it worthwhile.