Jenny Lundquist

It really is the charming life of Izzy Malone. I loved this book. I mean, I did expect to like it - but it hit every one of my expectations and soared higher. Much higher.

Izzy was fantastic. She was weird and odd and brave and confident in herself, while also not being confident. She really resonated with me. She wasn't what I expected and it was just perfect. I liked that she was not the usual tween heroine. Her lack of insecurity was a real draw - she was comfortable in her own skin for the most part - it's everyone else that's not comfortable with her and I loved that she generally didn't let it get to her.

The friendship between her and her sister was also a real win for me. I loved that they weren't beset by jealousy and rage and arguments but genuinely supported one another. Although Izzy has a few nasty moments, she was quick to apologise and recognise it wasn't Carolyn's fault. And I loved that Carolyn was so understanding and supportive and nice.

I felt sorry for Izzy. Her relationship with her mum is tense. But I did like that it examined the issues and recognised that it wasn't Izzy's fault. Adults are humans too and capable of screwing up and making mistakes and being insecure. And that includes parents. It's a hard lesson for anyone to learn but I liked the way it was portrayed here. And I liked that Izzy did her best to understand that it wasn't about her but her mum's own issues.

I loved Aunt Mildred. Her past is sad. She was married to her high school sweetheart for all of an hour before he was killed in a car crash driving home to tell his parents they'd eloped. Her and Jack had planned to travel and Beatrice (her twin sister) encourages her to do it anyway.

“Jack didn’t have money for diamonds, so instead of a ring, he gave me this charm bracelet. Of course, at the time, it was just a chain with a tiny book charm. He said that our life together was going to be like the best stories: adventurous and full of daring. He said every new place we traveled to, every new thing we did, we’d add a charm to my bracelet.

Lundquist, Jenny. The Charming Life of Izzy Malone . Aladdin. Kindle Edition.

Therefore when Aunt Mildred hears that Izzy's mum wants her to go to a charm school she decided to make a flyer and stick it in the letterbox advertising her own charm school. It was pretty obvious that Aunt Mildred is Mrs Whippie but enjoyable all the same. I loved the charm school. The whole thing was magical. Whimsical. Awesome. I'd love to join a charm school like that.

So Izzy's mum joins her up to a charm school with this idea that she'd behave. But it's not so much a charm school as a correspondence course. In her first letter Izzy gets a charm bracelet with a tiny envelope charm. Each letter contains a mission of sorts, something she has to do or undertake in order to earn her charm. The first one for instance requires her to send a letter to someone who needs cheering up. Along the way she makes friends, develops a crush, gets into trouble and has some adventures. I really loved that Aunt Mildred wants to pass on her own charm bracelet and Izzy refuses because she thinks Aunt Mildred still has a lot of adventures of her own to have. I adored that Izzy goes to the effort of buying her a hamburger charm that she refuses to give her unless she goes on a date with Scooter and earns it. It was just perfect.

I love that Izzy, Violet, Daisy and Sophia decide to make their charm bracelet adventures into a Charm School Club. And I love that Aunt Mildred becomes the club sponsor. It's just such a whimsical idea. I would've adored this book growing up, I imagine I would've read and reread it a lot. Perfect book for tweens and a pretty enjoyable read for adults who want to revisit their childhood adventures. 5 stars.… (meer)

Kind of disappointed. The charm of the characters in the first book seems to have disappeared, instead I am frustrated by the stubbornness and stupidly of the characters. I enjoyed seeing Andrei's perspective. The ending was predictable, which isn't a bad thing, but I had to read through so much that frustrated me getting to that point. The characters motives we're good and it made sense but Elara was just really annoying in this book. It was more enjoyable watching the characters switch in the first book. Yet, Lundquist is a good writer, I enjoyed the climax and the elegence of the characters words when they are determined.… (meer)

I would've enjoyed this significantly more if the onus for adjusting to the loss of her mother and being thrown into a new family and a new home hadn't been almost exclusively on Violet. None of the adults in her life—her father, her new stepmother, even her guidance counselor—seem to think they bear any responsibility for addressing her grief or uncertainty or anger or frustration.

When she finally explodes with all the harsh words she's been holding inside, instead of sitting down and talking through her frustrations as a family, they berate her for hurting everyone's feelings and tell her she's not trying hard enough. And Violet, already a people-pleaser afraid to say what she really feels for fear of hurting others, does as demanded and tries, reaching out again and again even after her initial attempts are met with punishing coldness.

Eventually, after Violet has already done most of the heavy lifting in her new relationships, her stepmother concedes that she could've done a better job in their first month as a family. And while her father swiftly acknowledges that he's made it difficult for Violet to come to him for fear of upsetting him, at no point in the remaining 100 pages after this admission does he attempt to check in with her, to make sure she's all right.

I understand that this is middle grade fiction and there are a lot of moving parts to cram into 240 pages, but I would've appreciated if a few more of those moving parts included Violet learning that it's okay to be unhappy and that it's okay to express that unhappiness with the adults responsible for helping her cope.… (meer)