The Poison Apples~ Lily Archer Review

Enjoyment: ★★☆

Plot: ★☆

Characters: ★★☆

Flow: ★★★

Overall: ★★☆

We all know the stories of Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel. But have you ever heard of Alice Bingley-Beckerman, Reena Paruchuri, or Molly Miller? Of course you haven’t. Not yet. What these girls have in common with their fairy tale sisters is this: they are the stepdaughters of three very evil stepmothers. And they’re not happy about it. They think they are alone in their unhappiness until they arrive at Putnam Mount McKinsey, a posh boarding school located in lovely rural Massachusetts. Here is where they will plot their revenge. But first they have to meet.

In her first novel, Lily Archer tells a knowing, wickedly funny story about how friendship just may turn out to be more happily-ever-after than family.

When the summary for the book brought up Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel I thought that the fact that those three princesses being mentioned would be significant. It wasn't. In fact, it seems to me that the only reason that the author mentioned them was because they were the three first people with evil stepmothers that she remembered. The three princesses mentioned had barely a passing resemblance to the three modern day counterparts. The fact that there were way too many spelling/grammar mistakes for my liking did not help endear me to the book either.

Out of the three main characters, I liked in order: Alice, Molly, and then last and indeed the least Reena. Alice and Molly were interesting and even though they had there faults they grew on me and I found myself liking them. I did not feel the same way about Reena. I could not stand her. She acted and thought exactly how you would normally see the antagonist in many YA books. She was shallow and all around annoying. I will admit that a big reason that I did not like her is because that is the type of person I do not like in the real world any more than I like in the fiction that I read.

Another problem with this book is how each of the characters choose their crush. The way that they do it is practically the same way that their fathers had found the evil stepmothers. Reena is angry how much older Shanti is than her father and she gets a crush on an older guy. (That and I find her obnoxious because she continually calls everyone by their first and last names. That is really not needed.) Alice falls in love with hers at first glance. While Molly . . . actually I can't really remember how she figured out that she liked who she liked. Then again it does not really tell how her father fell in love with Candy either. It was more of a behind the scenes thing. Well the point is that they each enact the thing that they think is the biggest offense that their fathers made, which to me makes them annoyingly hypocritical of them. Finally I just really hated how Lily mentioned Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel but they did not really have anything to do with the book. Why not just mention the names of the stepmothers? I realize I started off with this but it really really extremely really annoys me and just I can not get it out of my head.

On the plus side the ending has a really good twist that you probably wont see until at least halfway through.