Frogged

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I loved Hazel for finding a love like no other, loved Miriam for finding the strength to leave an abusive situation and redefine herself, loved August for making the choice to be there for a son she could never control rather than follow her own dreams, loved June for ignoring the noise that tried to make her stop drawing and loved Maya for never letting outside voices temper her love for her father and her family. I loved Miss Dawn for investing in Miriam’s daughters as if they were her own and loved the community that surrounded the North girls. Also, I loved that her prologue basically chastised me for remarking on how I usually skip prologues and author's notes. Ha! Well, I assure you, while I STILL skip most author's prologues (you know, the kind that are ABOUT the book and not actually a PART of the story), I ALWAYS read Vivian Vande Velde's prologues and author's notes (and you should too. They're funny!) a main issue with this book is the non-linear story telling. this is a new trope in modern literature, and i can confidently say it never benefits the story or the reading experience. it's use in this book was particularly bad in my opinion. it made for a lot of confusion and a lot of flipping around, at least for me. Through a series of unfortunate events, poor Imogene gets tossed in with a traveling theater group. This theater group isn’t exactly made up of the nicest people though. Most of them were downright infuriating. But they were supposed to be. And some of their antics were quite amusing. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for Imogene getting tossed in with these rotten, clueless people though. Thankfully, not all of them were straight up caricatures. There was some depth and even a character arc that really brought heart to the tale.

Frogged by Vivian Vande Velde | Goodreads

One other comment – Joan finishes the book with a life changing opportunity to move to England, one she claims as her destiny and causes her to reflect on her namesake Joan of Arc: it was harder for me to think of a historical character less suitable for inspiration for seeing England as a redemptive promised land of opportunity. This novel will make you feel and will make you think. I recommend it for all readers of literary fiction and family drama. I look forward to seeing what’s next for this debut novelist.

While I love the setting of Memphis with the author's beautiful description, I often wondered where this story was headed. It seemed for the bulk of the story to wander about without a true heading, like a boat adrift in the current. The overemphasis on God hate was also one of the themes that seemed overdone. She also felt like such a 12-almost-13-year-old. Her thinking process was so similar to mine at that age. She truly made the book! Our MC(?) Joan is indistinct and difficult to care about. She doesn't have a personality outside of her trauma—which is a criticism that can also be extended to her mother Miriam, her aunt August, and grandmother Hazel. They fail to spring to life or distinguish themselves in any way that would make them feel like REAL people. When I first started reading, I was a little worried she’d be pretty cliché. It seems most MG princess stories features a rebellious, tomboyish princess who defies her parents and thinks being tough is the only way to live. Which is okay occasionally, but it gets tiring after a while. Imogene was actually a breath of fresh air.

The Brick Matching Guide - Forterra

It was hilarious and added a whole other layer of fun to the story. But the entire book plot was a riot. So says The Art of Being a Princess , which Princess Imogene is supposed to be reading. But since she is neither particularly good nor all that beautiful, she skips her homework to visit the pond. There she meets a talking frog who claims to be a prince under a witch’s spell. Imogene kindly kisses him to remove the spell – and gets turned into a frog instead! Eh. It was okay. It sounded really fun; I love a good modernized/modified fairy tale. This one was supposed to be a take on The Frog Prince clearly. As my roommate Kelly pointed out when I read her the description, it sounded like a cross between Disney’s The Princess and the Frog and Don Bluth’s Thumbelina. (Which is one of my all time favorite movies, no shame.) The execution was just a little boring. There wasn’t much that was new here; I’m not sure why the author felt the need to tell this story. I never really felt any sense of suspense or urgency to the story, and pretty much all the characters were flat and one-dimensional. Imogene, the princess, was kind of fun and her voice was at times sarcastic and witty, but I didn’t feel any sort of real connection to her. The love interest at the end came out of nowhere and felt incredibly unneeded. The story didn’t call for any kind of romantic plot at all, especially not one so half-assed. Also Ned’s strange redemption/exposition that came in the final few chapters felt ridiculous and out of character. Overall, I was just not impressed with this book. Overall, I did enjoy the telling and certainty will be on the lookout for more of Tara Stringfellow's books. And if you’re scared this is a copy of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, don’t be! Yes, the princess gets turned into a frog, but that is the only similarity. It’s a very original tale!A couple of quotes from August who will go down as one of my all-time favorite fictional friends . . . . . Then, in the kind of voice quite a few people use for pets and very young children, Luella said, "Can you say Polly'? Say: "My name is Polly." The things women do for the sake of their daughters. The things women don't. The shame of it all. The shame of her daughter's rape, the shame of her husband's violence, her nephew's psychopathy. As you can tell from the line quoted above, this book is filled with gorgeous, poetic observations that will make you stop and dwell on the words you just consumed. There were so many lines I highlighted in this book. The story captivates from beginning to end and the characters pull you in and invite you into their lives. This was a powerful read and is one to be treasured. Highly recommend. What ultimately for me really rather detracted from the novel (which is very strongly conceived and well if not spectacularly written) was the rather high levels of melodrama – it feels like all the characters are permanently moving from one crisis to another in a way which took this away from the level of literary fiction and closer to soap opera, while also diluting the impact of the individual events.

Frogged by Vivian Vande Velde - Publishers Weekly

A princess should be as good as she is beautiful.So says The Art of Being a Princess, which Princess Imogene is supposed to be reading. But since she is neither particularly good nor all that beautiful, she skips her homework to visit the pond. There she meets a talking frog who claims to be a prince under a witch’s spell. Imogene kindly kisses him to remove the spell – and gets turned into a frog instead!Now the only way for the princess to un-frog herself is to convince someone else to kiss her. But before she can figure out a plan, Imogene gets kidnapped and becomes the unwilling star attraction in a third-rate traveling theater company. Can she find a way to undo the witch’s spell – or will she be frogged forever? Frogged by Vivian Vande Velde – eBook DetailsThe three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.

Frogged - Velde, Vande, Vivian: 9780544225466 - AbeBooks

I am not going to lie, the book was written well enough that I needed to see how things turn out. I had to see how each character turned out and whether they got closure in certain aspects of their lives.There is always a quest and a hero who must complete the quest no matter the dangers or the impossibility of the tasks set before him/her. (Chance, P. 84) Rampant classism— I mentioned this before (Miriam @ pediatrician's office) but the author seems to think that the characters needed to "earn" their story, so despite their poverty, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, etc, respectability politics and exceptionalism prop up their pain, making them "good people" or rather "good women", deserving of a better life. For a story that uses poverty and marginalization as some of the primary themes, all of the characters are exceptional, the exception to one rule or another, the absolute BEST at what they do and thus, privileged. It’s a family saga, shifting between 3 generations of women and while the sound of nonlinear stories doesn’t always appeal to me, it worked well here. Though this is a fictional story, it’s frustrating to know how little some things have changed over the last several decades. Memphis has no shortage of hardship and tragedy as the women and girls contend with challenges in life, but it also shows the power of family bonds and strong community, and has some hopefulness.