Tris and Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison

"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 and then ends up taking it herself accidentally, and falling in love with Tristan, the new guy at school."-GoodReads.

Hardcover, 272 pages

Expected publication: October 11th 2011 by EgmontUSA

Thank you Egmont & NetGalley!

One word and one word only comes to mind when I think about my reading experience with this book. Disappointed. 

 

The first thing that pulled me in and made me want to read this is that beyond amazing cover. I mean, look at it, it is so beautiful. It has probably become one of my favorite book covers. And then I read what it was about. Cue the jaw dropping. There is actually a whole lot more to the synopsis now then when I first read it.

Now I have not yet read the original tale of Tristan and Isolde so the only thing I actually had to go off of was the movie that had James Franco and Sophia Myles in it. I do love that movie though. And the tag line for it was "Before Romeo & Juliet, there was Tristan & Isolde." Romeo and Juliet just happens to be one of my favorite Shakespearean plays, so I knew this story would have to be good.

The movie was good. As I said, I love the movie. I thought that is what the book would be like.

I don't think I have ever been more wrong in my life. After waiting since the beginning of this year for this book and getting sooo excited that I received it early I had high hopes for it, and my hopes were crushed. 

From what I know of the story, the only thing that is the same in this book to the original, are the names of the characters. Except for Tristan...that ends up not even being his actual name in the book.

Which for me, didn't even really end up mattering since I did not like Tristan in the least. He was such a flat character. And Izzie was such a brat that I couldn't even pretend to like her.

There were also numerous inconsistencies and most of the time the story just felt forced. It almost felt like reading a really rough draft of what had the potential to be a great story. But as much as I wanted to like this story and sticking around for all of it, I just could not like it at all. Though I still may have to get a hard copy just so I can have that gorgeous cover on my bookshelf. 

I received this book free of charge from the publisher or author in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, altered my opinion of the story or my review.