Marie Fostino was kind enough to send me a free ebook of ‘The Silver Locket’, in exchange for a review, so here it is:
Review Of ‘The Silver Locket’ by Marie Fostino
[Warning: This review contains a few spoilers].
I must admit, at first, when I started ‘The Silver Locket’, I didn’t really identify with the main character, Jenny, and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to continue reading. But I’m glad that I did!
Although some of the writing is a little ‘suspect’ in places, and repetitive, Marie Fostino is an expert at using evocative language and emotive imagery to create heart-wrenching moments. Indeed, the ending even brought tears to my eyes; although I didn’t see it coming, really, when looking back at the overall plot, it was inevitable - there really was so much subtle foreshadowing.
A couple of things that I did find confusing, especially at first, were the ‘head-hopping’ between different characters – with no apparent break/indication of a change of point of view - and how the thoughts of a character were shown. Sometimes the thoughts of the characters were speech-marked, other times they weren’t.
Although I didn’t really like the change of perspective at first, I began to get used to it, yet, overall, I feel that the story would’ve been strengthened had it solely been told from Jenny’s point of view.
At first, I found the characters and situations a bit stereotypical, i.e. good girl meets bad boy, Bad boy changes good girl, but then I realised that it is a thing that happens. After all, it showed the readers how big a problem drugs are, and how influential some people can be.
I must admit that I loved Jenny’s character arc. At the beginning, she annoyed me, but by the end, I felt that I could relate to her, and felt sympathy for her. But, I also admired her too. Similarly, I liked Jacy’s transformation, for the same reasons.
There were quite a few formatting issues, as well as grammatical errors (those aren’t really the author’s fault), but I did notice in two places where characters’ names were misspelt. Particularly in the second-half of the book, I felt that there was more telling going on, rather than showing, but the ending was really evocative and emotional.
I also found a lot of the more minor and background characters to be one-dimensional – Jenny’s brothers and sisters, and some of Jacey’s friends.
The actual plot is great, and the event which triggers the whole plot off, is one that most people can relate to: moving house. This gave the book a very realistic feel, and I like how Marie Fostino created the illusion of a lot of time passing in certain parts of the narrative.
I also liked how the book started and ended with the grown-up Jenny’s point of view, showing how events in the past can really affect the individual in the future. I felt that this was realistic, and very well done.
Although this review sounds a little negative and critical, (like many of my reviews do!), this book is definitely worth reading; in ‘The Silver Locket’, Marie Fostino has delivered a powerful story. Indeed, I found that I couldn’t stop reading this, and I did read it in two evenings.
After finishing ‘The Silver Locket’, I discovered that this is one of those books, where, once you’ve read it, you can’t stop thinking about the main characters (and the emotional ending).
So, go and take a read of it for yourself, to find out what I mean.
Madeline’s Rating for ‘The Silver Locket’: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
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Buy ‘The Silver Locket’ on Amazon (US) or Amazon (UK).
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