Tris and Izzy by Mette Ivie Harrison

Author: Mette Ivie Harrison    


Series: N/A   


Pages: 272  


Imprint/Publisher: EgmontUSA   


Release Date: 10-11-11  


Ages and Grades: 11-13  


Provider: Netgalley  


Summary


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 (Branna) and then ends up taking it herself accidentally, and falling in love with Tristan, the new guy at school. 


Review


Tris is the new guy from a posh family. Izzy is blissfully happy with her supposed to be lifelong boyfriend, Mark, who is super uber popular and has his own posse. Izzy's best friend, Branna, refuses to tell Izzy who she likes-and while Izzy tries to find out, she messes everything up-resulting in her drinking a love potion-and falling in love with Tristan.  


My first thoughts when I received this book was that this would be like Cara Lynn Shultz's Spellbound, which I loved to death. Branna, Izzy's best friend (since kindergarten) is someone to empathize with. She loves someone she can't have-someone who is right under her nose. I felt that Branna lacked character and emotion. Even after she got what she wanted, she was still lacking what would make her the perfect character. 


The storyline was clear, although sometimes it seemed irrelevant. Although magic is a main part of the story, it wasn't clearly and realistically portrayed. Magic was just like an add on that jumped in between the pages. Most of the time magic will have a huge display when it arrives in books-especially when people don't know. 


The love triangle was quite interesting but overall very predictable. I didn't feel that suspense when I read about it-it was somewhat emotionless. Also, Tristan....he wasn't someone I envisioned as perfect, like Edward Cullen. Harrison envisioned someone strange and mysterious-so much like Edward-but somehow did not pull that triangle off. A lot of the plot is confusing and ungenuine. Tristan is supposed to be the perfect man-in theory, but he just can't measure up to it. Izzy is happy, the reader is not.


I did, however feel that the fights were properly animated, if not somewhat comical. I'm not an expert of German myths, but if you want to read the German myth that Tris and Izzy was based on, click here. I'm not quite sure if this is Irish (according to wikipedia) or if it is German, but I guess you'll have to determine that for yourself.


A big thank you to Netgalley for sending me this book.  


Rating


2 It was okay