A Coming Evil

Rating:
Summary: Exciting and Suspenseful
Review: Lisette hopes the year she turns thirteen will be the best year of her life. Unfortunately for her, the year she turns thirteen is 1940, when the Nazis are in France. On September first, her birthday, her parents send her away to live with her Aunt Josephine in the country because they think she will be safer there than in Paris. Lisette is not happy about going there, partly because she thinks here parents don't want her, and partly because she hates her cousin, Cecile. When she arrives at Aunt Josephine's house, she finds out her aunt is hiding Jews and Gypsies and there is a ghost in the woods. I liked this book because the story is told with a lot of detail. When you read this book, you almost feel like you are there with the characers in the story.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely incredible
Review: This book is fabulous. Like everything else of hers that I've read, I was DEFINITELY not disappointed by it! Lisette is believable - she's selfish at times, not a perfect little lady. I wanted to strangle Cecile, and I LOVED Gerard. It's a mysterious, intriguing book. Read it. Now.

Rating:
Summary: Exciting and Suspenseful
Review: Vivian Vande Velde turned away from her usual fantasy to produce a sort of ghost story set in WW2. A Coming Evil, while a very readable book, had a number of plot flaws that prevented it from being an excellent one.

The plotting around Gerard is especially weak. His unexpected return to life with the appearance of Lisette was given no logical reason and his 'archaic' speech seemed particularly inaccurate. While reading the book, it was almost as though Vivian Vande Velde was just making illogical things happen to service the plot. Apart from the lack of reasonable grounding, the ending (while certainly suspenseful) seemed rushed and abruptly cut off.

On the other hand, VVV is excellent at creating the right atmosphere, and the WW2 setting works unexpectedly well with the contrast to Gerard's life. Not bad, but on the whole, if you like historical ghost stories, you're much better off trying Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Sherwood Ring.

Rating:
Summary: Exciting, but faulty
Review: Vivian Vande Velde turned away from her usual fantasy to produce a sort of ghost story set in WW2. A Coming Evil, while a very readable book, had a number of plot flaws that prevented it from being an excellent one.

The plotting around Gerard is especially weak. His unexpected return to life with the appearance of Lisette was given no logical reason and his 'archaic' speech seemed particularly inaccurate. While reading the book, it was almost as though Vivian Vande Velde was just making illogical things happen to service the plot. Apart from the lack of reasonable grounding, the ending (while certainly suspenseful) seemed rushed and abruptly cut off.

On the other hand, VVV is excellent at creating the right atmosphere, and the WW2 setting works unexpectedly well with the contrast to Gerard's life. Not bad, but on the whole, if you like historical ghost stories, you're much better off trying Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Sherwood Ring.