Official Review: The Forest of Evergreen

[sorpurt]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Forest of Evergreen" by Teresa May B. Bandiola.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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The Forest of Evergreen- Lost in the Wilderness by Teressa Bandiola is a book with an enormous amount of potential that unfortunately fall short. The book begins with a wonderful historic description of the Vangekans, fictional creatures that live in the make-believe land of Philipdomia. The prologue leads the reader to believe that these creatures will be a major portion of the story, or that the story will be surrounding these incredibly unique/imaginative creatures. The reader, sadly, will be disappointed in that the story surrounds a human girl by the name of Sophia.

Throughout the book, Sophia along with several other human characters are the main focus, not the wonderful creatures described in the prologue. Sophia’s story will definitely pull on the emotions of the reader. She grew up in Forest Green with her grandmother, and was recently reunited with her parents and siblings. The story picks up with her journey after this reunion. She deals with the typical drama of a high school student: love, heartbreak, loss, struggling to fit in... After an accident she develops amnesia and tries to rediscover who she is. Instead, she rediscovers the life she used to know.

I feel like the characters in this book are not as well developed as they should be. Sophia feels very shallow, and it is hard to relate to her as a main character. You will feel sorry for her, but it’s hard to feel with her, while she goes through her journey. Her supporting characters are also hard to relate to and don’t seem to have a lot of substance. Along with under-developed characters, I feel that the plot line could have been better. It is extremely jumpy and doesn’t flow like a well written novel should. As mentioned previously, the Vangekans, which were introduced in the very beginning, don’t make an appearance until the middle of the book. I feel like the author could have done a better job of tying the two worlds, human and Vangekan, together in this novel.

This book has such incredible potential. I love the concept the author has created, but the execution just isn’t there. There are so many grammatical errors, misused words, and just lack an over lack of impact on the reader that it fell kind of flat. It is really hard to connect to characters and follow plot line, when the reader is stumbling over grammatical errors and has to try to decipher what almost seems like broken English at points.

Overall, I would give this book a two out of four stars. It has the potential to be a four out of four. The concept of the story was amazing; the execution just wasn’t there. I wanted this book so badly to be as incredible as the idea for it was.

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The Forest of Evergreen
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Like sorpurt's review? Post a comment saying so!

[Cee-Jay Aurinko]

Sounds like all this book needs is a bit of tweaking. Nicely done review Sopurt!

[ashley_claire]

Nice review! Too bad the book fell a bit flat.

[sorpurt]

It is really unfortunate. I was really rooting for the book to be a good one.