Drink with this: Diet coke
Slightly too sweet and
insipid. No alcoholic kick. Good for a quick caffeine and sweetener buzz but
ultimately these are empty calories.
What's what:
Manic Pixie Dream girl fancies
preppy rich guy, but almost sabotages their relationship due to her own
self-loathing. Unfortunately this was a contemporary young-adult romance sadly
lacking in the actual romance.
A criticism levelled by
many readers at this novel is that Ella is an irritating and insecure
character. Her insecurity didn’t bother me as such, as this was a fairly
crucial plot point. Nevertheless I would have liked to see more of a narrative
arc going on with her character, with a bit more transition between a state of
complete wet blanket-ism to Buffy style ass-kicking. (Not literally, one thing
this book is entirely bereft of is any whiff of the supernatural.)
" 'Are you freakin' kidding?' She loomed over me. 'Do you not understand the basic laws of nature? You are nothing. You do not exist.' " pg 333 The Fine Art of Truth or Dare
A common opinion in
Goodreads reviews of the book is that her conversations with Edward, an artist
who has been dead for over a hundred years, are more than a little creepy. I
actually liked this aspect of the book – I found it believable that a mopey
teenage girl would have a romantic fixation with a figure almost completely
constructed in her imagination. Ridiculous crushes are a fundamental hallmark of
being a teenage girl! This also develops the theme of truth in an interesting
way, and the often idealised perception we have of others and their lives. I
have to admit though that the Twilight parallels – Ella – dead Edward –
unhealthy romance – completely passed me by until I read somebody else’s
review, and now I’m finding this slightly sinister….
I really liked Ella’s
friends and family, who were all well-drawn characters who added something to
the story. Unfortunately this seemed slightly wasted effort on behalf of the
author – I felt that a lot of the subplots involving them petered out towards
the end. These characters at times seemed there more to add local colour than
any real narrative significance. Frankie’s brother Danny falls into this category
– I kept expecting him to feature further, and for his storyline to amount to
something. When this never happened it definitely felt like the gun being
ignored on the mantelpiece. Not that I object to a sexy bad boy with witty repartee,
but still - why was he there at all?
The biggest failing in this
likeable novel though has to be the relationship between the two lead characters.
It just didn’t work. I had more of a sense of who Ella and Edward as a couple
were than Ella and Alex. I understood intellectually Alex’s point of view at
the book’s central crisis, but his smug behaviour didn’t particularly endear
him to me a character. There was a distressing lack of swoon in the book, which
sadly the sweet ending (SPOILER!) came too late to salvage.
" 'I don't even know what okay would mean,' he said. 'Okay. We've never been okay. We've been kinda scrambling for it....But Jesus, Ella, I really don't want to feel like I have to constantly be reassuring you of things you should know for yourself.' " pg 353 The Fine Art of Trrth or Dare
Verdict: Enjoyable enough but ultimately unsatisfying.
On the big screen: Could imagine it as a faux indie offbeat romance, in the style of Garden State etc. A screenplay would strip away all the extraneous material, and impose a stricter plot. Not sure if even attractive leads could inject enough chemistry to make this a believable romance though.
Highbrow/lowbrow: Despite the art history allusions, comfortably lowbrow.