Penelope - Joyce Ingari

Title: Penelope
Author: Marilyn Kaye
Pages: 239
Rating: 4 out of 10

The book I read for quarter 4 was Penelope. Penelope is about an aristocratic girl who gets cursed with the nose of a pig. According to her mother, the only way Penelope can get rid of her pig nose is through the acceptance of “one of her own kind”. In Penelope’s case, this would be someone high status with some green to spare. The book starts when Penelope is 25 and living in seclusion at home with her ex-socialite parents, their housekeeper Jake, and her professional matchmaker Wanda. Her mother is appalled at Penelope’s nose and is very eager to break the curse, so she has Wanda pick out single, rich men who are eligible to break it. When Penelope meets with these men, she sits behind a two way mirror as to not scare them with her nose. But every time she thinks a man is ready to see her face, she comes out and they scream and run from her in horror. Enter Max. When Penelope was born, her parents decided to avoid any troubles with the media and the press so they staged their daughter’s death. They had a real funeral and everyone believed it….except for one particularly persistent reporter. This is where Max comes in. The reporter found him gambling at the bar, knowing that Max Champion is eligible to break the curse, and told him that he would pay 5 big ones to have Max snap a picture of Penelope. So they dust off the old coat-jacket-with-camera-concealed-inside and Max heads off to visit Penelope. Max arrives in a room filled with 20 or so rich single men, waiting to meet Penelope. Penelope asks all of the men into her mirror room and then in a burst of frustration runs in and reveals her nose. All of the men run towards the door screaming like 12 year old girls running for Justin Bieber and Penelope is left alone…with Max. They talk and start clicking so he leaves and then returns twice more, never once taking the picture. Then, when Penelope is certain something is going on between them, she asks him to marry her so that he can break the spell. Unfortunately, Max says no and Penelope is angry and a little bit heartbroken. So, with these emotions fresh in her mind, she packs some things and goes off into the world….for the first time.

I think this book tried too hard to be good. I saw the movie and thought it was decent…not that it had anything to do with the attractive boy who played Max…and I guess I was expecting more from the book. I thought the author tried to make this book a love story while also making it a story about self discovery and…it failed. The storyline was choppy, things developed way too quickly to be realistic and it was cornier than ethanol. By trying so hard to include both, they didn’t put as much quality time into each aspect of the story and therefore it crumbled. Maybe this is just my cynical side being…well, cynical…but it was honestly way too predictable when the only one who needed to accept her was…herself. *Cue sighs*. I also really didn’t like how the author portrayed one the friends Penelope makes, Annie. In the movie, Annie is funny, laid back, very adventurous and never says anything amazingly profound, which I enjoy. But in the book the author made Annie out to be a Mini-Gandhi. Almost everything she said was something philosophical about life and respecting yourself and inner acceptance. Gross. The theme was no challenge to find and the seemingly good messages of self respect and confidence are cheapened by their blatantly obvious portrayal. If you are someone who likes really easy reads with less than original themes, then I think you’ve found your next book. If you do not like cheesy fairytales with predictable endings and choppy storylines, then I recommend skipping this book. However, the movie is perfectly decent and I’m probably going to get in trouble for saying that the movie was better than the book on my last English book project…but fact is fact.