Review: A Song for Ella Grey

A Song for Ella Grey
Author: David Almond
Publication Date: October 2nd 2014
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

 

"I'm the one who's left behind. I'm the one to tell the tale. I knew them both...knew how they lived and how they died."

Claire is Ella Grey's best friend. She's there when the whirlwind arrives on the scene: catapulted into a North East landscape of gutted shipyards; of high arched bridges and ancient collapsed mines. She witnesses a love so dramatic it is as if her best friend has been captured and taken from her. But the loss of her friend to the arms of Orpheus is nothing compared to the loss she feels when Ella is taken from the world. This is her story - as she bears witness to a love so complete; so sure, that not even death can prove final

I...don't even know what or where to start with A Song for Ella Grey, this shit was strange. And an unwelcome acid trip. Beware, rant ahead!  One that probably  doesn't make that much sense because this book didn't make much sense. We have 272 pages of book. What happened in this book, you ask? I have no freaking idea. I just know 100% that this was not for me. At all.

Even if you know the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice you still probably wouldn't be able to follow this.  I don't know what it even was, the lack of actual character and plot,  or the crazy style of writing that just kept going and going without a break, but I hated the 20% I actually read, and the 80% I skimmed over. But seriously,  there was a page of one person speaking. No breath. No pause. Just talk. It's like a ton of ramblings over and over and the same damn thing over and over, that we have 272 pages, that if you took away the over descriptive nonsense, and very repetitive paragraphs, you'd have around 50 pages of actual story.

Besides the writing, the story, and (everything,) the worst thing for me was the characters. I can't even. A  bunch of brats parading around, being young and youthful and doing shit and blaming it on their youth, because youth, you guys. Youth makes you crazy. Give me a fucking break, you bunch of try hards. They didn't even sound like teenagers, and the parents! The parents take the cake, they're telling them to go out, have fun, get drunk, have sex with random people, do stupid things, sow those wild oats because you're young. Go mad, hey, don't worry if you kill someone, it's because youth makes you crazy! We have Claire, whose in love with her best friend, Ella Grey (our Eurydice) we don't know why she loves her, but she does. Ella Grey's very naive and sounds like she's around five, ignorant isn't the word. Then there's the gay thing that's not addressed, and that was pretty cool because it just was, but the thing is, Ella would kiss Claire and she wouldn't even realise what she was doing was leading Claire on. Then there's Orpheus, I couldn't get into this from the beginning anyway, but as soon as Orpheus made an appearance I was out. Like, let Ella  Grey die already, and put me out of my misery, out.

Rant over.

 

Rating: 1/5

 

 

 

 

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