Friday, May 21, 2010

Jekel Loves Hyde by Beth Fantaskey - Book Review #23

Friday, May 21, 2010
Jekel Loves Hyde
by Beth Fantaskey

Jill Jekel has always obeyed her parents’ rules – especially the one about never opening the mysterious, old box in her father’s office. But when her dad is murdered, and her college savings disappear, she's tempted to peek inside, as the contents might be key to a lucrative chemistry scholarship.

To better her odds, Jill enlists the help of gorgeous, brooding Tristen Hyde, who has his own dark secrets locked away. As the team of Jekel and Hyde, they recreate experiments based on the classic novel, hoping not only to win a prize, but to save Tristen’s sanity. Maybe his life. But Jill’s accidental taste of a formula unleashes her darkest nature and compels her to risk everything – even Tristen’s love – just for the thrill of being… bad.
From goodreads.com

I love The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. This is one of my favorite stories and I usually love all interpretations and reworks, adaptations and different versions of that story. I probably have seen all movies that at least loosely based on great novel of Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. This is why I was convinced I’m going to love Jekel Loves Hyde and I tried loving it. I tried very hard. I finished the book and I still couldn’t even like it, not to mention, love it.

Everything in Jekel Loves Hyde felt feigned and pretentious, like a bad play in School Theater. All I wanted to do while I was reading is scream: “I don’t believe you!” and I probably did couple of times.

Spoilers!!!

I was really disappointed how Beth Fantaskey showed Jill Jekel being bad. She simply made a whore out of her. Is it all? Is it all that woman can do to be bad? I mean really bad. Everything, as I already said was completely unrealistic, including a relationship between Jill and Tristen and on top of that their relationship was sick. Tristen turned out to be not just your regular bad guys, he was a killer, twice a killer. And he killed not just someone, not by an accident, but he killed his family, convinced that he is saving them. That boy needs so much therapy that it would be just cruel to put him in prison. And after knowing all of that Jill still was convincing herself that she loved him and wanted to be with him. I mean, how desperate is she? And I’m sure I would’ve needed a bit more than self convincingness to stay with a guy like that, after I would know what Jill knew about Tristen.

Another thing that was killing me – almost everybody in Jekel Loves Hyde killed somebody and none of them have any problems with authorities. It definitely felt like police was nonexistent. Their pretence to be genius chemists is a whole different story, which would be probably as funny as pretence itself, but I’m not going to go into that direction.

I could’ve said a lot more about Jekel Loves Hyde, but I won’t. I will only say that I’m probably done with Beth Fantaskey, she is just not for me. I would read anything by her only in case it would see a killer recommendation from the sources that I trust. Until then, I wish a good luck to Beth.

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