Deadly Flowers: A Book Review

 

        

         Deadly Flowers is a middle-grade novel that follows Kata, a stellar student at ninja academy for girls. Kata has the honor of being assigned her first solo mission, an assassination. However, upon realizing that her target is a little boy, Kata has second thoughts about her mission and has to make a difficult choice.   I have very mixed feelings about this book, but I still prefer to start with what I liked first.

         The author certainly did her research when writing about the ninja. As a self-identified ninja enthusiast, I enjoyed it. I feel she could have gone a little further with the factual information about the ninja and the like, but I do know that the average reader may not appreciate this the same way I would and it’s a story not an encyclopedia.

         The beginning set at school and were my favorite parts. I liked how the girls, who are mostly orphans, looked out for each other in their own ways and the nicknames they gave to their instructors behind their backs. It all made the school feel more like a real place.

What didn’t work for me:

           Kata’s arrogance blew my mind. She’s a fifteen-year-old ninja who has been training her entire life. I think she should be allowed to have some confidence, but to a point. She constantly thinks about how she is so much better than her two companions, and mentions how it has been years since she has been punished at school for failing even the most difficult of an exercise because she is just that amazing. Speaking of her two companions, Kata has a strong disdain towards Saiko. Kata reminds the reader of this dislike every other page. In my opinion, I see it as believable that someone like Kata may not click with someone like Saiko immediately. However, we do not need the narrator to more or less say “I don’t like this person” nearly every time the character breathes. (That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it did happen enough to grow tiresome).

Towards the end of the book, the characters seem to only take action because the plot needs to keep moving so people need to do things. I don’t want to spoil anything so I will leave it at that.

         My final gripe is the way the book handles foreshadowing. During the story, things happen that may make a critical reader raise an eyebrow. That is okay. What is not okay to me is that when this comes to fruition, the narration reminds us of every single moment that led up to this. Stuff the reader is already aware of. This bothered me because it came across more like the writing saying, “You are too simple to remember what happened so I am going to remind you.”

         Deadly Flowers is okay. I feel it actually could have used more information on the Ninja, but I know I am just an enthusiast so this might not be the opinion of the average reader. The action scenes (mostly blow-by-blow descriptions) could also use some work, but it is not the main focus of the book.

I will admit that a lot of my issues with this book are personal pet peeves of mine, foreshadowing, the main character’s personality, etc so I would say if you read this and think what bothered me would probably bother you as well, then this book might not be for you. However, if my concerns don’t seem like that big of a deal then I think it would not hurt at all to give it a try.

Just Ella Sacrifices Magic and Wonder for "Empowerment"

      

    Just Ella is a retelling/sequel to the Cinderella fairytale. It follows our heroine Ella after the ball when she is getting ready to marry her prince, and her happily ever after is right on schedule. However, she quickly realizes that life at court as a future princess may not be what she wants out of life. A story about Cinderella not being completely happy with her life after the ball is a very creative setting for a fairytale retelling. However, I don’t feel it was executed all that well here. 

 Before picking up Just Ella I heard it was praised as a feminist retelling of Cinderella that was a more grounded and realistic take on the tale. I did not find it to be feminist as (although the line itself is never spoken in the book) Ella has the attitude that she is not like other woman and is very much the exception rather than the rule. This retelling also removes all the magic from the fairy tale (the carriage, fairy godmother etc.,) but it keeps other equally unbelievable elements. 

         Some of the elements I found unbelievable was the world building. They live in a fictional kingdom, but they speak languages like French, Latin, Greek, which would imply that they lived in our real world. Their religion is literally just Christianity with a different name. So this story is fantasy because it is most certainly not historical fiction. I have nothing against fantasy stories with little to no magic, but I don’t really like it when the magic is removed and the setting is said to be more realistic and/or historical because of it. 

The noble women only sit and do needlework all day which Ella scoffs at. Except noble women in medieval Europe had many responsibilities, one of the most significant being running the finances of the estate. Other un-official duties of noble women included hosting and receiving guests (who may or may not be foreign diplomats) and planning events such as parades, tourneys, etc. The Queen is never shown to partake in these activities nor does she try to teach these to Ella which if this was a more “realistic” setting she would most certainly be doing.  I was also confused why sewing was treated as being so useless because in pre-industrial times, sewing was an essential task because people kind of needed to wear clothes for warmth and protection.  

         Ella constantly berates he lady’s-in-waiting for being stupid and most of the humor stems from just how air-headed all the other ladies at court are. Actually pretty much everyone, but Ella and her love interest are so incredibly stupid its infuriating. There is a lot of conflict between Ella and these rich boneheads, but there is not really any tension from these conflicts because the courtiers are so wrong there is no possible way Ella could get them to listen to her, and because they are so wrong it also doesn’t make Ella seem all that clever herself. I don’t need to be exceptionally smart to tell someone not to drink gasoline. Ella is not that level-headed to think spilling a few drops of soup on a table cloth is nothing to lose one’s head over. 

There is also this one incident that probably bothered me way more than it should have. Ella is attending a tourney with her ladies and she is excited to finally have a break from all the gossiping and sewing. However as soon as they arrive outside the ladies sit in a pavilion that is closed shut and Ella is understandably angered by this because she came to watch a tourney and now they are shut inside a tent and cannot see anything. Ella is told that the curtains are drawn because women are forbidden from watching tourneys as they are to delicate for such action. Women regularly attended tourneys throughout history.

Ella snaps at this and during her rant over this matter, she asks her ladies-in-waiting what they are waiting for. A lady-in-waiting tells Ella that they wait for the men to get home. This irked me because a lady-in-waiting at least historically was more like a retainer and a secretary to a noble woman who she waited on. Hence the name.

Now without magic, how did Ella get to the ball? Throughout this story other characters discuss rumors that Ella received help from a fairy-godmother, but Ella makes it clear this was not the case. Towards the end of the story she explains how she gathered everything she needed for the ball. She, a peasant who is little more than a servant to her step-family, got them herself, the dress, the carriage, and even the glass slippers which she won from a bet she made with the glass blower.  I don’t really mind this per se, but when she is explaining this to her love-interest, the only other character in this book who has at least two working brain cells, comments. “People would rather believe in fairy godmothers and divine intervention than to think that you took charge of your own destiny.” I might be reading way too much into this, but I felt this line was meant as a “take that” towards the original story and people who like fairy godmothers and magic. 

This story assumes that Cinderella in the fairytale is a passive character who gets lucky, and this is true that she is lucky, but I wouldn’t say she is passive. In most versions of the story and the Disney movie, Cinderella tries her hardest to be allowed to attend the ball and in many versions completes impossible tasks that her step-mother sets up for her only for everything to go wrong. In most stories she receives assistance whether through a fairy godmother or in most cases the spirit of her late mother, but this doesn’t just happen. 

Ella is written as an antithesis to what readers expect a Cinderella character to be by being far more active. However, she isn’t any more active than other characters, she just doesn’t have things go wrong for her just before the ball. 

 I pushed through this book because, due to the praise it received for being a feminist retelling, I expected that Ella would have to check her internalized misogyny at the end, but she does not.  Ella begins and ends this book believing she is “not like other girls”.         

Do I recommend this book? Not really. It feels like a parody that, in some ways, disrespects people who enjoy fairytales and magic. More affectionate parodies/reconstructions of Cinderella that gives the original Cinderella credit where credit is due is My Fair Godmother by Janet Rallison and Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.