Review Detail

Reader reviewed by ambeen

Madapple is truly a very different sort of novel from what I'm used to reading. I really enjoyed it, though, finding myself getting wrapped up in the story, desperate to know more.

Each chapter alternates between the past events and the present jury trial. I really liked this aspect because it gave us a glimpse of what would be happening in the future chapters. Those events would then turn out to be totally different from what I was expecting from the information given during the trial chapters. I thought this was clever and an interesting new way to tell a story.

While I enjoyed the trial chapters, some of the legal jargon during the objections from the lawyers was confusing and I wasn't sure how it fit with what the witness was testifying. It didn't really affect the reading, but was just a minor annoyance that I wasn't able to fully grasp what was going on during the trial.

The characters in the novel were another part I thought was executed really well. While I hated pretty much every character apart from Aslaug (the main character) and Phalia, I thought they were well written and developed. I was able to understand why they were all a bit psychotic along with their extreme behaviors, even while hating them for it.

All in all, a wonderful first novel. I can't wait to see what Christina gives us next. She really is an author to look out for with her originality and great writing style. I literally ate up this 400 page book in 2 days (technically 3 but since I didn't really read the day inbetween, I don't count it :P ).