Reading Under the Willow Tree

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I wanted to like Transparent but the truth is I just couldn’t. There was not enough here to keep me really interested and there were parts that annoyed me.

The problems started straight away when the book jumped straight in with little introduction or explanation. The world building didn’t work for me and I felt like I was being told stuff instead of being shown. I just don’t think things were explained well enough to engage me and I was often lost or confused.

There were also some things that just didn’t make much sense. If you are running away from your powerful and dangerous father would you really enrol in high school not that far away from him? Would you stay at that high school if everyone there knew you were this man’s daughter? I would have thought that being Invisible you would just slink off and hang out in swanky hotels for free, travel the world and hang out it boys locker rooms. Or maybe that’s just me. I just couldn’t understand the reasoning behind her staying so close to her dad and making no real attempt to hide her identity.

I might have been able to deal with all that if it wasn’t for the MC Fiona. I just really, really disliked her. She is mostly sulky, miserable and rude and occasionally horrible and cruel. Her treatment of her mother is something that I couldn’t stand, it made me grit my teeth with anger. Her mother is trying to help her, trying to save her but Fiona only cares about herself and does nothing but belittle and bully her.

This was (in theory) a really good idea and it could have been an amazing book but the unbelievable plot like and nasty main character put me off. I got to the half-way point and skimmed my way to the end.

Transparent gets one star for me being able to finish it. One star for being (on paper) a good idea and for attempting to do something new, giving it a total of 2 stars.


The publisher provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review