Book Review: Tris&Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison

Tris & Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison
Expected publication: October 11th 2011 by EgmontUSA


My rating: 2 of 5 stars

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.

     Let me first just say how disappointed I am these past few days, I seem to be reading more awful books lately... well anyway, here goes...
     I had a love at first sight with the book’s cover, what with all it’s gorgeous color, autumn environment, it was just so pretty, plus the title captioned and modernized Tristan&Isolde just with the perfect touch. I can almost taste the beautiful potential it has. However, I just had to read what’s inside it. Boy, was I disappointed! What I thought to be one of the epic love story in history retold in a not-at-all epic novel. I read many review saying negative things about Tris&Izzie but I had to give it a try thinking “since I haven’t read the original manuscript, I won’t compare and expect too much. Surely it won’t be all bad!”, also this will be a chance for me to enjoy the story in a modern retelling. Twenty-five percent in, I already didn’t like the way it was written, but still I went on thinking it will get better, but not surprisingly it didn’t! I’m sorry but this is just one of the silliest, corniest, most predictable and cliched story I’ve ever read. It has lots of loopholes and problems I can’t even point my finger on. I hate how trying hard it was to be “fast-paced” without having any breaks at all. Everything happened in one week. Izzie fell in love with Tristan only in one day. ONE DAY! So much action has happened in one day, and I can actually believe those, but love at first sight? Are you freaking kidding me? Not just the love which actually means “I just like like you”, but the “I love you forever” thing, which is ridiculously funny. Moreover, the break-up, make-ups that took place didn’t quite entertained me, it burdened me! Is that how quickly you realize you turned out to be not with the right person? The characters’ personas were so twisted. Izzie was so bitchy most of the time that I hated her. I hated how she can’t just control her feelings and keep it inside a box. I hated how Tristan was so fake. I know I know he’s being true to himself but I can’t help it but see him as fake. Branna. gosh I don’t know how traitor friends like her exist. I can’t just accept how fast Izzie forgave her and how “open” she was to giving Mark (her boyfriend) to her. URGH. Every freaking time I remember it, I can taste how cliche and how fiction it is. And then, there was the main story. I thought this was a love story, but it turned out to be a paranormal fantasy novel, which is soo not what the summary was trying to portray. Sigh, sigh, sigh. I’m so broken by this book. Anyway, despite all my negative comments, I have to say in some parts of the book, I like how the story went. But mostly, I didn’t like it.

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