Tangled in time : Portal Review (Rant)

Title : The Portal

Author : Kathryn Lasky

Rating : 1/5

Series : Tangled in time

Estimated publication date: April 19 , 2019.

Life used to be great for Rose: full of friends, a loving mom, and a growing fashion blog.

But when her mother dies in a car crash, Rose is sent away to live with a strange grandmother she hardly knows and forced to attend a new school where mean girls ridicule her at every turn.

The only place Rose finds refuge is in her grandmother’s greenhouse. But one night she sees a strange light glowing from within it. She goes to investigate…and finds herself transported back five hundred years to Hatfield Palace, where she becomes servant and confidant of the banished princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Henry VIII.

Trigger : horrors of henry VIII , bullying

• Characters

Rose , our MC is a fashion blogger with a lot of righteousness and patience.

Rosalinda , our protagonist’s grandma is a really interesting character who is really into gardening.

Franny is the scullery maid who rose befriends in the palace. She has a lot more potential in the upcoming book.

Lisa , Carrie and Brianna are the mean girls trio.

Jack , Myles , Joe and Susan are Rose’s backboned 21st century friends.

And there are some more minor characters.

• My review (or should i say rant)

The book was a mess. Utter mess. The author is a lady with old writing style.

The book started off really interesting and it had great potential. But it got worse.

It was like a mix of mean girls , poorly constructed time travel in a history book. It’s not at all fair and full of cliche’s .

“It’s their right, Rose.”

“No, I disagree. It’s their wrong.”

In a very few places we’ve been reminded the protagonist is a kid

The story line is low fantasy which happens both in 21st century and 16th century in Tudor period.

The characters potrayed are mostly women and most of them are either showed bad & mean or good & shy. Human beings have layers. No one is good or bad.

Bullying ought to be taken seriously. Everytime the trio bully rose or anyone they just pretend nothing has happened and move on. Umm no. That’s not how you are supposed to respond bullying. The book clearly has serious issues. They throw glasses at her , lock her in a locker when no one’s around , make fun of a physically challenged kid in a wheelchair , emotionally harass rose with her mom’s death. And the reason , THEY ARE BULLIES THAT’S WHAT THEY DO. NO. We should teach our kids to speak up and against bullying.

I can clearly say no one should read this book. It potrays women so bad and the characters. Just because Mary (the Bloody Mary) was a real villain in the history doesn’t mean she had to be a jerk all the time.

According to the author , All the royals are spoiled and screwed. Seriously???

Even I knew what happened during Henry VIII reign being a non english speaker. Probably the whole world know that too. We don’t really need a retelling if its not really a “RE” telling.

The author has gone with all the cliche’s and molds there are. There isn’t a single surprise or unique moment.

Everyone is good or bad and royal kids are being kids?! Is it even possible? After your mom and stepmom being beheaded by your father , will you still go play behind a tree? Edward was the worst portrayal. He had been through worse. He won’t act like a child after a severe childhood trauma!! Its like the author didn’t even care about what she’s writing.

If you’re going to screw something , create and screw. Don’t get history which the whole world knows and screw it .

There are irrelevant details and information all over the book. How the royals bathed once a month and used fart gun is not necessary information.

And of course there are little pictures of the shoe , cruff and Elizabeth I. I don’t know much about fashion blogging or any bloggers but aren’t you guys supposed to do more than just recreate vintage and take inspiration from tudor period??? What kind of cliche is that?????

Thanks for bearing with me guys. It was quite a bit of a rant and my first 1 star rating. Tell me what you think about my rant.

Happy living