Member Reviews

The format was well, the writing was just very simple. I found little depth in the story line. Characters were not rounded well and not very interesting.

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I really enjoyed the beginning of this book, when it was light and fun - but then things took a turn for the weird and I started to get irritated.
There was so much potential and it was a fun idea but it really didn't work for me, especially the fact that it stopped dead with no conclusion to the story.

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DNF at 13%
Did no one see the historical inaccuracies in this novel?!
Agnes is said to go back in time to the Grecian period where she is getting lectured by Aristotle. (who lived between 384 BC-322BC (as stated by Britannica.com). We meet Philip, Prince of Greece, very quickly in the novel. First off, what? Princes and royal families did not exist until "...1863 to 1924 and again from 1935 to 1973..." (Wikipedia). So how could there be a Prince Philip (who I suppose is named after the actual Prince Philip, married to Queen Elizabeth?) but they cannot be together in the same time period!
Not to mention Agnes' best friend is Polly, which is not historically accurate in the slightest, and wouldn't Agnes go by another name to try to fit into the time period? That's what I would do.

Brookbank would break the fourth wall very often during her novel, something that I *hate*. She had her narrator actually speaking to the reader at times which takes away from the scene in my eyes.
Her style of writing is very simplistic and clearly this is her debut novel. As a writing tutor, I saw many mistakes that I see when tutoring college students for writing that I saw in Brookbank's writing as well. Simplistic wording, longer sentences that could be more concise, very colloquial writing in the novel. It was irritating and something that I was not expecting when opening this book.

Seeing all these other reviews where Brookbank has gotten 3+ stars made me think that I'm missing something, so I kept going back to try to read more but reading this novel kept getting on my nerves. There's a difference between witty and annoying and Agnes crosses the line straight into intolerable.

So that's how I felt about the novel. I was really hoping for a good read, since I've been on a pretty good streak of novels recently but this was a complete disappointment. I was going to try to make it to 20% to see if I stomached it that far, it would get better. I couldn't even make it that far. The description that was provided lulled me into thinking that this novel would be much better than what it actually was. If the writing of the description was like the writing in the novel, I think I would have loved it a lot more.

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My Name is Agnes by Kelly Brookbank is a book I requested from NetGalley and the review is voluntary. This is a fun and clever book perfect for this time of the year. I didn't care for the first part, the dialogue started out childish or trying too hard but later got better. I enjoyed it once the story started going. Solving a mystery, the humor, and the fun.

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I think this book would interest the younger adult readers. I just could not get into it....I do love this type of book, it just seemed like the main character would have been a really fast erratic talker....

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This is a great book with a wonderful story and well developed characters. The story flowed very well and was very enjoyable. This book will keep you reading long into the night and you will not want to put this book down until you finish. This was such a great read and full of surprises. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader’s copy of this book. The free book held no determination on my personal review.

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