Thalia @ Pictures in the Words

(This is what it looks like when I graduate from college and I finally come off hiatus with my reviews!)

Anyway, so it’s been about a year and a half since I finished this book, which is shameful, I know. Unfortunately, my notes while reading this were not spectacular, so I will not be going into a lot of detail with my review here. I did enjoy The Fine Art of Truth or Dare, but I suppose one of the tests of how good a book is is how much you can recall its story and characters long after it’s over. The Fine Art of Truth or Dare has not really kept its place in my head very clearly, which is one of the reasons I didn’t give it a perfect rating. It was fairly average in storyline and character development, so it’s easily forgettable. (To be honest, I don’t remember the “truth or dare” part of this at all, which does not bode well for the memorability of this story.)

The Fine Art of Truth or Dare is about a girl named Ella who is obsessed with an old artist named Edward Willing—and I do mean obsessed. Although I completely understand her fascination with a long-dead artist, it took up way too much of the plot. I felt like more time was spent on uncovering the true life of Edward Willing than on Ella’s budding relationship with Alex. It’s not that I thought it made Ella unrealistic or I didn’t think it was interesting—I’d been going through similar experiences with one of my long-dead idols, Edgar Allan Poe, discovering his life was not quite the dramatic tragedy I’d wanted it to be—but it didn’t have a place in this particular story. It made it terribly difficult to root for the main couple of the novel when so much time was spent away from the characters’ interactions together.

That being said, I obviously still enjoyed the book quite a bit, and I think I would read it again someday. Ella’s friends, Sadie and Frankie, are so wonderfully written, and I found myself relating much more to Sadie than Ella, hahah. Ella’s self-consciousness and fears about liking someone who seems so far above her will be relatable to many teenagers who have felt inadequate while having a crush. The whole narration was certainly much better than many young adult novels out there right now, and it’s good if you’re looking for something light-hearted, but done fairly well.

See the full thing on my blog!

http://thaliasbooks.tumblr.com/post/158082101922/the-fine-art-of-truth-or-dare-review