Ophelia by Gingras
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Back when I was a teenager, I read a book called The Fog Comes on Little Pig Feet. It was about a miserable girl, keeping a journal, and the usual angst that comes from being a misunderstood teenager. Not sure if it is still relevant in this day and age, but this book, Ophelia, reminds me of it, with her keeping a secret journal of her life, and how she is misunderstood.
This is a hurt child, and this journal helps her get over her hurt, along with making a friend with another outcast. One reviewer said she figured out what was going to happen from the beginning, but I have to say I wasn’t sure where the author was going to go with it. I was surprised at somethings, to be sure. A good addition to the “journal keeping teenager who can only speak to the paper about her pain” series of books.
The only issue I have with this book is the illustrations that Ophelia has done, have not been translated, and usually I would say that is ok, but the little French I still have, from learning it 40 years ago, or so, I think that we should be able to read what she has written on her drawings. Perhaps the final book will have them in English.
The other issues I have with the book are minor. I’m not stupid, I understand when she says she is in French class that it is the equivalent of being in English class in that you are writing essays and reading literature, rather than learning the lanaguage. But, I wonder if most readers would get that.
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.