What do You think about The Prophecy Of The Stones (2005)?
This review has some spoilers, but if you haven't read this book, you may not understand everything I'm saying. Even if you have read it, you may not understand me...:)Um...uh...well...I finished reading this a few days ago, and I'm still trying to figure out what the point of it was. I can't believe that this girl is a 'literary sensation'! Perhaps it lost something in the translation from French, though. My dad says that in French, flowery language actually sounds good. I don't mind descriptive writing, but this was overkill. I had many, many problems with the characters. Especially JADE. UGH, that girl bugged me! She was conceited, selfish, bratty, nasty...grrr...when she barged into that old woman's house and demanded all sorts of things, I almost decided not to finish this book. I'm not really sure why I finished it...so that I could say I finished it? This book was almost as bad as Abel's Island, and that's saying something. Ooh! Another thing that drove me nuts was the whole 'love at first sight' thing. I mean, come ON! Amber looks at a guy, and he looks at her, and they decide that they will love each other forever. Practically the same thing happened with Opal. That's so unrealistic! Argh! Also, it seemed to me that the characters were defined more by appearance than by personality. It's good to know what the characters look like, but only if they're characters, rather than just hair and eyes and pretty faces. To its credit, there were a few interesting things about this book. The parts with the Joa girl who was dying in the hospital were kind of interesting, though I didn't like how she was full of self-pity, then she wanted to die, then she wanted to live...A few sentences in the meeting with Death were interesting, but they were completely ruined when she said at the end, "Are you sure I don't need to go on a diet?" And how could the three girls become attached to her in the tiny amount of time they were with her?Anyways, I had a LOT of problems with this book, and I could rant about it for a lot longer, but I won't. I'll just say that Swordbird was much better. And that was an eleven-year-old author! Two years younger than when Flavia Bujor supposedly wrote this!
—~Megan~
I first read this when I was 10 or 11, and rather liked it (probably partly because it was written by a teen, and I also want to be an author), so much so that when I saw it available in the used book store I shop at frequently a year or two later, I bought it. When I googled the book to learn more about the author, I was pretty surprised to find out that it had mainly negative reviews. For the intended audience of ages 9-12, it is certainly an entertaining read (for example, I loved the idea of Death going on strike), though not a very well-written one. When I re-read it at around age 12 or 13 though, I didn't like it as much. The characters are somewhat generic, and the plot isn't overly original. For younger kids, it's a great novel to read, but I quickly outgrew it. I do think Flavia Bujor deserves some credit for completing a novel and managing to publish it at her age, but I know plenty of teens who have also written novels, many of which are much better than this one was. I'm not sure why this has gotten the attention it has or why it has been translated into different languages, because it is not the best book. If you want a better book written by a teen, try the Eragon series by Christopher Paolini or the Swordbird series by Nancy Yi Fan. I would recommend it for ages 9-12 (though the 12 may be pushing it for some kids). An okay read.
—Kinga
How much was lost or added in translation? The writing is both mature (for a 12-year-old) and blatant fairy princess fodder. I listened to the audio book with the children whenever we got in the car and I felt it was entertaining enough. The reader made all kinds of voices and I felt she did a good job even though her male characters sounded lazy, like surfer dudes. I don't mean to criticize, but the best thing about this book is that it was written by a pre-teen. She was patient and tried to put us through the ringer with keeping things from the reader, but in the end, she lost her patience or pacing of the story. Characters were appearing where they needed to be instead of describing the days of walking to get there as they did in the beginning of the story. Other characters were spewing secrets that were years in the making--totally uncharacteristic. I don't think I got the present-day-Paris character's purpose. The ending baffled me, like it was unfinished and the writer just wanted to be done.I laughed when I read that Death had gone on strike and was feeling depressed and unappreciated. She became my favorite character as I imagined a pre-teen making Death speak of her need to lose weight. That was funny.
—Trish
