Customer Reviews

Undine

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Superbly narrated by Mellisaa Eccleston, "Undine" by Penni Russon is the story of Undine, a young girl who gets along quite well with her somewhat eccentric mother, loves her little baby brother, and is best friends with her next-door neighbor Trout -- who has something of a crush on her. But something strange is beginning to happen to her. She finds that she is able to affect the weather. It seems she is beginning to be able to do magic! But magic can have consequences -- sometime rather unpleasant ones. This complete and unabridged, 6 CD audiobook is flawlessly recorded with a running time of six hours. A deftly crafted fantasy brought vividly to life in a true 'theatre of the mind' experience for children age 13 and older, "Undine" will prove to be a popular addition to school and community audiobook collections!

I'm not a big book reader, I just dont seem to find the time. But I just couldn't put Undine down! I was entrapped in the mystery and the magic. A book that I'm sure most people will enjoy. I highly recommend it.

I'm lucky enough to be in Australia where the second novel has been released. I promise you, once you read Undine you will want to read the second book!

Do yourself a favour... and buy it!

I really liked this book, and although it wasn't alway clear what was going on, the author describes her characters very well and gives them depth and meaning

A lovely YA fantasy set in Hobart, about Undine's search for her father - which ends up being a search about herself, her history and the magic in her blood. Beautiful and evocative writing, and some really gorgeous character relationships, particularly the teenage ones.

Undine is a marvelous and compelling read--that is, if you are into reading long, draggy books with unnecessary details, loosely tied ideas and a much more loosely connected plot. It has an interesting concept idea however it is implemented very poorly. The story is about a teenage girl, Undine, who lives with her mother and two year old half-brother and is best friends with her next door neighbor, Trout, who has an immense crush on her that Undine is well aware of. Undine also hears voices telling her to "go home" constantly and has a father who's supposed to have died before she was born telepathically communicating with her. All the while, odd objects from her dreams somehow materialize in the real world, right at Undine's doorstep, quite literally. Undine starts off being, understandably, shocked and disturbed at the course her life is taking. The novel is supposed to go on and tell the story of Undine coming to terms with her `magic,' the fact she has a father, and her relationship with Trout, all the while dealing with the life-altering events of growing up. It is supposed to be a novel describing one girl's journey of self discovery and self acceptance.

Stress is placed on the words "supposed to be" because the reality is that this distinction is barely, if at all, made in the novel. The novel ends up becoming more of a sappy melodrama focusing on Undine's relationships with boys more than anything. Trout, Richard (Trout's older brother), and Grant (Richard's friend), Undine has apparently seduced or bewitched all three boys with her magic and her long legs. A great proportion of the novel is dedicated to the sixteen year old girl's silly love life, or lack thereof, rather than on building the plot. Of course it can be argued that `love' and hormones are a significant part of growing up and that Undine's self-discovery is directly related to her relationship with one of the three young men mentioned. However, the topic is overplayed in the novel and distracts from the main meaning of the novel. It transforms the novel itself into a shallow piece of writing. The same concept could have been explained to the reader much more effectively it was given slightly less attention. In addition, if the author's message was to shed light on the process of growing up through this, she failed miserably. Growing up has a lot more to it than just raging hormones.

It is highly unlikely that a person will be able to "grow up" or "find herself" in just one week, as Undine apparently does. The novel spans over the course of approximately seven days. The purpose of this time range is unclear. Perhaps the author intended to show the unpredictability of life through this somehow, or it might have just been a whim. The latter appears to be truer.

This short time period is juxtaposed with a voluminous amount of absolutely nothing in the book. One would presume that a short time span would mean that the book is either very fast paced or if it isn't, then a lot of plot is fed into each day mentioned. Ideally, this would be the case. However, in Undine, it isn't. The book has chapters' worth of no plot or storyline whatsoever, instead replaced with silly rantings of children and their hormones and Undine's deteriorated relationship with her mother. Admittedly these are important aspects of life, but they don't take the story forward enough to dedicate a massive amount of the book to them.

Another decision the author made about her novel that doesn't entirely make sense either is her choice to write it in a third person limited point of view, alternating between the perspectives of Undine and Trout. The story is about Undine and her journey for self discovery and she clearly is the protagonist. Trout is just a side character whose emotions and feelings don't really matter when taking the rest of the story into consideration. Parts of the story told in his point of view merely and unnecessarily show the raging hormones of male teenagers, demonstrating how such hormones transcend all boundaries posed by gender. This has nothing at all to do with the main storyline. Perhaps the author intended to contrast Trout and Undine's changes in characterizations--Trout's personality remains constant for the most part whereas Undine's changes greatly, shifting from nice, happy, and cheerful to annoying, scared and full of angst to finally content. Still, so much stress on him was unnecessary, especially with his online conversations with "MAX." The only result of telling the story through Trout's point of view is to force the readers to sympathize with him, especially when Undine chooses his own older brother over him to start a romantic relationship with, all the while fully knowing about his feelings for her. That's a lie. There's another result: a waste of time and space.

The structure of the book shows an amount of lack of creativity on the part of the writer. She divided it into two parts, labeled Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 is about Undine realizing that she isn't even as normal as she believed she was and that she needs to find answers about herself and her heritage from her father who she does not know at all rather than confront her mother, who has raised her for her entire life, for the answers. The second part comprises of her going to get those answers and then actually finding them. Such clear and simple distinctions take away from the sense of reality that remained in the novel, regardless of its being about magic. Life is not so simple to be easily divided into two segments like that. All `segments' merge and blend into each other in real life. Such division of the book is thus also unnecessary.

The novel deals with too many thematic ideas. It struggles with the ethical debate of human dignity versus scientific curiosity, with mother-daughter relationships, the changing relationships of friends, self-discovery, father-daughter relationships, coming of age, the horrors of power and greed, and many more. It appears that the author is trying to tackle too many themes into one book and is thus unable to effectively develop even one of them. This also prevents her from tying up all the loose ends in the storyline. Many mysteries that captured the reader in the beginning remain unanswered. Why, for example, are Tuesdays always bad days? How did objects from Undine's dreams materialize? If Undine had this `magic' feeling from the beginning, why did she never talk to her mother about it before? And, I even dare ask, what happens to the relationship between Trout and Undine?

Too many loose ends, too draggy a story, and too much emphasis on unnecessary characterization transform Undine from a potentially interesting read to a boring book that one just wants to put an end to as fast as possible. It is a disappointment and not recommended if you are looking for a degree of depth of plot or a well-developed storyline in your reading.

I ve already read various novels about some teenager who discovers she isnt normal and somehow magical, but the title caught my attention; an "undine" is a water mythical creature so it was kindof different from what ive read before. But, in the end, this book was a waste of my time. I always say a fanstasy book is good when I cant put it down, not even to go eat. This book was so boring I found myself skiping lines or even paragraphs to see if something really interesting was gonna happen...some other reasons i disliked this book are:
*Irrelevant events or characters..like who cares about the relationship Undine has with Mim? what about the fish and the sand?
*I thought Undine was goint to be some marine creature or something..i mean her names Undine, the sea calls her, she feels alive when shes near water..and she ends up being some kind of witch??
*The author doesnt describe the characters well enough and its hard to imagine how they look like..I got that Undine had dyed red hair..but what was the color of her eyes again?, what was Trout's hair texture? Ive enever read a book in which the author didnt describe the characters thoroughly.
*I didnt feel any connection with the characters. The only emotion i got from this book was when Trout sees Undine and his brother kissing but thats about it..I didnt even cry when Trout supposedly died..even though Im used to cry when reading sad scenes.
This book was too short and at the same time too long. 300 pages left to waste. Good thing I borrowed it from my school library, otherwise i would be really pissed if id to paid $7 for it. Ive read shorter and FREE books i got here that are WAY better than this one.
This book was so BLAH! Waste of my time..see for yourself if you must.. D:<

To be honest, I wasn't very impressed by this book. It was kind of an interesting idea, but horribly cliche. Another girl who finds out she has magic powers. I'll admit that the ending wasn't that obvious but I never really fell in love with the characters. Undine is definately a Mary Sue. She has virtually no faults, she's beautiful, and all the guys want her. And I'm totally confused about who she's in love with. Is she just promiscuious, or can the author not decide who she falls for? And sometimes it feels like the author is just filling in space.

I did finish it easily in one night, so I suppose it wasn't a waste of TOO much time, but there are much better books out there.