I’ve played it safe in recent years, for my reading. I’ve stuck to authors I know and love, and books I know and love. But in my Quest to Read Them All, obviously I will have to try other books. Other authors. Experiment with new-to-me genres. Styles. Books I wouldn’t ordinarily read.

And try not to throw them across the room when they irritate me.

Which nearly happened several times with The Ballad of Never After, by Stephanie Garber.

I did make it to the end. It did take me nearly the whole of the three weeks the library gave me, but I got there.

Not because it was a difficult book; it wasn’t. It was an okay sort of book.

But the main character, Evangeline Fox, annoyed me. Too many emotional sorts of decisions, I think. And I kept getting the feeling that perhaps it was a sequel. Not that I could find any references anywhere within the book to suggest that it followed another. No “Book 2 of…”. No “Continues the story of…”. I’d specifically checked this before I took it out. (Sidenote: Turns out, yes, it is a sequel. Which explains so much. Not that I’m going to be going back to read the first. Evangeline was far too annoying.) The twists also weren’t that twisty.

I wonder if it’s because of developments in the Young Adult genre of book, which either didn’t exist when I was the target age or passed me by altogether because I was too busy reading Beowulf or Golden Age detective novels or Georgette Heyer or whatever my college book-club was reading. It was just too trying to be dramatic, I think.

On the other hand, though, Rooftoppers (Katherine Rundell) was emotionally much more satisfying, even with the ending that obviously had to happen, because it’s a children’s book. Still made me tear a little. I really liked the character Charles, who was a perfectly gentlemanly eccentric scholar, and the child Sophie an engaging child.

A very straightforward sort of story, probably aimed at 9-12 year olds, I would imagine, but no less interesting or satisfying for all that. And at least none of the characters had me stifling irritation or resisting the urge to throw the book.

Anyway, I’ll be looking out for more of Katherine Rundell’s books in the library. I expect I’ll be giving Stephanie Garber a miss, though.