Title: Tris and Izzie
Author: Mette Ivie Harrison
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Publication Date: 10.11.2011
Pages: 272
Genre: Romance, Arthurian Legend
Series: No
Rating: D-
Summary (from Goodreads):
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.
Review:
If you are 13 and have no knowledge of the legend of Tristan and Iseult there is a chance that you may like this book. But it’s probably a very, very slim chance. This book was quite possibly the biggest let-down of my reading year, maybe because I had some seriously high hopes for it.
Nevermind the fact that the book makes a mockery of the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Iseult (Isolde) or that the plot jumps around more than a sleep deprived, over-caffeinated teenager, but the characters in this are just flat out annoying. Our heroine, Izzie, is a whiny, self-indulgent child who irritated me to no end.
When Izzie makes the potion for her best friend, Branna, she makes it in the hopes of finding a true love for her best friend. But she doesn’t give the potion to a guy she knows Branna likes, or even a guy she’s known for more than five minutes. She literally meets Tristan, decides he’s open for business and basically forces the potion down Tristan’s throat. Then Branna refuses to drink, and Izzie’s boyfriend, Mark, reaches for the bottle. God-forbid Tristan and Mark fall in love, so Izzie drinks it herself.
She drinks the potion. She doesn’t simply drop it and say, “Clumsy me.” She drinks the potion knowing full-well what will happen, and then spends the next ten chapters complaining about it. Did I mention she didn’t even tell her best friend she was manipulating her into falling in love forever? Some friendship.
Not that Branna is much better. She is seriously the worst best friend I have ever read in a novel. And Gwen, Izzie’s mother, is quite possibly a contender for Worst Mother of the Year. When Izzie confesses she drank the potion and she and Tristan are now stuck together and Mark will be devastated, Gwen pretty much says that sucks for Izzie, but it’s not her problem. Way to help your daughter, Gwen. Kudos.
I found the romance thin and anticlimactic. The scenes where Izzie and Tristan were together gave you whiplash because Izzie threw herself at Tristan and the next page slapped him for lying to her. Uh, pot meet the kettle? The whole book was ludicrous, which is a shame because the legend of Tristan and Iseult is a great story.
