Tris and Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison
Release Date – October 11, 2011
Publisher – Egmont USA
Pages - 272 pages
My Rating- 5/10
**obtained from Book Expo America for an honest review**
Here is the Goodreads synopsis
A modern retelling of the German fairytale "Tristan and Isolde", Tris and Izzie is about a young witch named Izzie who is dating Mark King, the captain of the basketball team and thinks her life is going swimmingly well. Until -- she makes a love potion for her best friend Brangane and then ends up taking it herself accidentally, and falling in love with Tristan, the new guy at school.
I am a huge fan of the Tristan and Isolde tale, and was very excited when I heard about this book. It has such a gorgeous cover, and I was quite looking forward to reading it. Sadly, the thing that make Tristan and Isolde great ends up being lost in this modern retelling.
The characters kept me at a distance. I had a hard time connecting to any of them. Our main characters Izzie was self centered most of the time. She couldn’t see what was right in front of her, and did not really take others into consideration. Her best friend, Branna, is in love with her boyfriend. I found Branna not very likeable as a result of the way it was handled. Izzie’s boyfriend Mark is OK, but we don’t really get to know much about him. Tris is under developed. I just found something lacking character wise that kept me from caring about them.
The love connections between the characters did not ring true for me. I did not get swept into an epic romance, and even with the help of love potions did not feel Tris and Izzie as a forever love. It felt rushed (even more rushed after a plot reveal) and very “insta-love”. I think maybe if the characters had been more prominent it might have come across differently.
This leads to my biggest issue- the fantasy elements. They are fine and certainly well explored. Fans of fantasy will appreciate these elements. I feel that more emphasis was put on that than the characters though and it hurt the story.
The writing itself is simple. It might work well for younger pre-teens though. The plot felt obvious and at times a little scattered. I sometimes felt like there were parts that didn’t flow right.
I really wanted to fall in love with this book, as much as I fell in love with it’s gorgeous cover, sadly that just didn’t happen. It might be a better fit for younger pre-teens however.
