Re: The Naughtiest Girl Series
Posted: 21 Oct 2017, 11:03
Well, I stayed up late last night finishing The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor, but I'm sorry to say I found it unexpectedly disappointing.
(SPOILER ALERT for anyone who hasn't read it)
It was fairly obvious from the start that Elizabeth's all-too-proud attitude towards her new role as a monitor, thinking she was going to be so wise and good, was going to lead to trouble pretty quickly. But actually, we see very little of her being a monitor. As soon as she runs into a serious situation — things being stolen from students — she takes it into her own hands and things all go belly-up from there. Of course she is told very firmly later that she should have referred the matter higher up instead of laying traps and thinking she could resolve it herself, but not before it's all dragged on far too long in an increasingly tiresome manner and caused great upsets for a number of people, not just herself. I just feel it would have made for a much more satisfying story if things had been wound up quicker, with Elizabeth learning from her mistakes properly and finally growing into her responsibilities and earning the admiration and trust of others, instead of acting arguably even more foolishly for most of this book than she did in the previous two.
Arabella looked from the start like she was going to be a brilliant example of a character we love to hate, but after helping to turn most of Elizabeth's friends against her and excluding her from the midnight feast, she fizzled out almost completely. There was some indication she was learning to be less vain, but she never really got her comeuppances as most Enid Blyton anti-heroes do, and we didn't see her undergoing any genuine transformation for the better. Felt like a complete waste of a character.
Julian... what do I say? I'm afraid I could not warm to him at all. His "don't-care" attitude comes across as downright obnoxious, at least to me. When he plays those tricks on Elizabeth — not for any good reason (this is before she makes that terrible accusation against him!), but just because he can — that shows an incredible amount of selfishness and partly leads to Elizabeth's demotion from being a monitor. What a twerp!! And yet, after that awful blow, she suddenly just cracks up laughing and forgives him because, well, he's Julian. Totally unconvincing. Of course, we do then see him meeting with terrible news that changes his attitude towards life, but I felt Enid also handled that episode clumsily and not very credibly, especially with such a sensitive issue as a parent in danger of dying. Which is something some of Enid's readers might actually have experienced in real life, quite possibly without the happy outcome Julian had.
The quite sudden revelation of Martin's wrongdoing also didn't seem to fit in well. We've hardly seen this bloke all through the book and now we find he's to blame for so much? This whole story was really quite a complex one, but it just seemed badly paced and awkward all the way through — unusually for Enid.
And the happy ending... Elizabeth saving the child from drowning comes in one chapter before the end, unrelated to anything else in the story before it, like a sort of deus ex machina plot device. I was certainly hoping she'd get to be a monitor again by the end of the book, but where's the logic in what happens next? She hasn't yet shown in any way that she can handle the responsibilities of that role — she's only proved throughout the whole book that she can't, and that she wasn't really ready to be a monitor when she was elected the first time — and yet she's almost spontaneously re-elected as a special reward for rescuing the child, not because she's shown any of the growth in character that she truly needed and that Whyteleafe is supposed to foster. There's not even a vacancy for a monitor at the time, but well, let's change the rules just this once for her because she's Our Elizabeth. Doesn't seem consistent with the Whyteleafe ethos — which has been promoted so heavily throughout these books — at all!!
Sorry to tear this book apart when I know others here have really enjoyed it, but I just felt hugely let down after all the enjoyment I got out of the first two. If we had star ratings for books here, the previous two would get at least 4.5 out of 5 from me, but this one I'd give a 2 out of 5. Very, very disappointed.
(SPOILER ALERT for anyone who hasn't read it)
It was fairly obvious from the start that Elizabeth's all-too-proud attitude towards her new role as a monitor, thinking she was going to be so wise and good, was going to lead to trouble pretty quickly. But actually, we see very little of her being a monitor. As soon as she runs into a serious situation — things being stolen from students — she takes it into her own hands and things all go belly-up from there. Of course she is told very firmly later that she should have referred the matter higher up instead of laying traps and thinking she could resolve it herself, but not before it's all dragged on far too long in an increasingly tiresome manner and caused great upsets for a number of people, not just herself. I just feel it would have made for a much more satisfying story if things had been wound up quicker, with Elizabeth learning from her mistakes properly and finally growing into her responsibilities and earning the admiration and trust of others, instead of acting arguably even more foolishly for most of this book than she did in the previous two.
Arabella looked from the start like she was going to be a brilliant example of a character we love to hate, but after helping to turn most of Elizabeth's friends against her and excluding her from the midnight feast, she fizzled out almost completely. There was some indication she was learning to be less vain, but she never really got her comeuppances as most Enid Blyton anti-heroes do, and we didn't see her undergoing any genuine transformation for the better. Felt like a complete waste of a character.
Julian... what do I say? I'm afraid I could not warm to him at all. His "don't-care" attitude comes across as downright obnoxious, at least to me. When he plays those tricks on Elizabeth — not for any good reason (this is before she makes that terrible accusation against him!), but just because he can — that shows an incredible amount of selfishness and partly leads to Elizabeth's demotion from being a monitor. What a twerp!! And yet, after that awful blow, she suddenly just cracks up laughing and forgives him because, well, he's Julian. Totally unconvincing. Of course, we do then see him meeting with terrible news that changes his attitude towards life, but I felt Enid also handled that episode clumsily and not very credibly, especially with such a sensitive issue as a parent in danger of dying. Which is something some of Enid's readers might actually have experienced in real life, quite possibly without the happy outcome Julian had.
The quite sudden revelation of Martin's wrongdoing also didn't seem to fit in well. We've hardly seen this bloke all through the book and now we find he's to blame for so much? This whole story was really quite a complex one, but it just seemed badly paced and awkward all the way through — unusually for Enid.
And the happy ending... Elizabeth saving the child from drowning comes in one chapter before the end, unrelated to anything else in the story before it, like a sort of deus ex machina plot device. I was certainly hoping she'd get to be a monitor again by the end of the book, but where's the logic in what happens next? She hasn't yet shown in any way that she can handle the responsibilities of that role — she's only proved throughout the whole book that she can't, and that she wasn't really ready to be a monitor when she was elected the first time — and yet she's almost spontaneously re-elected as a special reward for rescuing the child, not because she's shown any of the growth in character that she truly needed and that Whyteleafe is supposed to foster. There's not even a vacancy for a monitor at the time, but well, let's change the rules just this once for her because she's Our Elizabeth. Doesn't seem consistent with the Whyteleafe ethos — which has been promoted so heavily throughout these books — at all!!
Sorry to tear this book apart when I know others here have really enjoyed it, but I just felt hugely let down after all the enjoyment I got out of the first two. If we had star ratings for books here, the previous two would get at least 4.5 out of 5 from me, but this one I'd give a 2 out of 5. Very, very disappointed.