Author: Suzanne Selfors
Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers, 336 (January 4th 2011)
From: the Publisher, Thank You!
Synopsis: When you're the daughter of the bestselling Queen of Romance, life should be pretty good. But 16-year-old Alice Amorous has been living a lie ever since her mother was secretly hospitalized for mental illness. After putting on a brave front for months, time is running out. The next book is overdue, and the Queen can't write it. Alice needs a story for her mother—and she needs one fast.
That's when she meets Errol, a strange boy who claims to be Cupid, who insists that Alice write about the greatest love story in history: his tragic relationship with Psyche. As Alice begins to hear Errol's voice in her head and see things she can't explain, she must face the truth—that she's either inherited her mother's madness, or Errol is for real.
Review: 3.5 Stars - 3.5 Stars - Suzanne Selfors Mad Love is unique in both characters and story. With mythology incorporated throughout, with the real Cupid as a main character, Selfors weaves a tale in the present, filled with an epic love in the past.
Alice, a teenage girl has a lot of issues to deal with. Thankfully she has some good people around her to help her deal. Being a teen is hard enough as it is, but to have to deal with all that she does on top of the normal everyday issues, she seems to handle it well. I did like Alice as a character, however I was sometimes confused when it came to some of the decisions she made. I guess that’s all part of being a real teen, making mistakes, so some of those decisions were more than understandable. I felt for her as a character as well and wished she let more people in on exactly how much she was really dealing with.
Alice’s mother is an acclaimed Romance author with many issues of her own. Sadly they are all kept locked away from prying eyes of the public. With her mother not in the picture, and being one of the many things Alice has to juggle, comes a small issue of her next book being due, and well, she’s not around to write it.
In comes Errol, or Cupid to you and I. He’s a character to be reckoned with and has no time to deal with Alice and her issues. I mean, I get he was on a tight schedule, which you’ll have to read the book to understand, but I didn’t care for some of the things he said or did to Alice along the way. He’s not anything like what I would have pictured “Cupid” to be, but… there were reasons and you need to read further on into the book to fully understand. It was then that he became more of a likeable character, though it was a struggle to get to that point.
It takes Alice a long while to figure out just who Errol is and if he’s real – and really, I don’t blame her at all. She had normal reactions to the whole situation.
With quirky side characters, Ms. Bobot, Tony, Realm and a handful of others, I did laugh a couple of times out loud, which further elevated my thoughts about this book. It’s sometimes hard to read a story that deals with some serious issues, as this one does and not have some lighter moments to break things up.
All in all Selfors’ writing and characters kept me reading, the mythology held my interest and a love that just was meant to be written down made Mad Love a book that many will want to read and will enjoy.
FTC Disclaimer: I did NOT pay for this book, nor have I been compensated at all in any way or means for reading and writing this HONEST review.
Oooohhh....this one sounds very interesting! :)
ReplyDeleteThe cover alone made me want to read but now that I know what it really is about, I want to read it more!
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