LitPick Review
Spunky young Ondine ran away from psychic summer camp, feeling the lack of her supernatural abilities greatly. Ondine soon finds she herself is in fact quite powerful. First she hears a talking ferret, then discovers a man under a curse and a heritage she thought was merely folklore. Things happen in a whirlwind for Ondine. She continues to develop her powers, but other things also develop — like feelings for her ferret friend. Ondine also attracts the attention of the dashing son of the duke. Read The Summer of Shambles to see how it all plays out.
Opinion:
Summer of Shambles was quite enjoyable. McKenna wove a wonderful, whimsical story that takes the reader on a humorous journey. McKenna’s characters were loveable. McKenna took roles that could be mundane (side characters as an example) and gave them a most colorful and beautiful essence.
Adding to that note, McKenna’s writing style is among my favorites as of now. She writes with a lot of humor and small jokes. As I was reading this, I held a goofy smile on my face nearly the whole time. McKenna showed great ingenuity in this book; the plot and characters were admirably written.
The only drawback I found while reading was that in the beginning it was hard to understand the timeline of the book. Even though McKenna placed several footnotes, maps and ‘informative tidbits’, I still found the exact location of the plot implacable. Instead of the ‘informative tidbits’ being helpful, I thought them to hinder the flow of the story and rather wished that McKenna had used more descriptive tools to explain things.
