Scones and Sensibility Review

Scones and Sensibility by Lindsay Eland is a middle grade contemporary. We follow 12-year-old Polly as she uses inspiration from her favorite books, Anne of Green Gables and Pride and Prejudice, to help the people in her life find love.

I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars. It was funny and a quick read. I liked the concept, but it didn’t really rise up to my hopes. Polly is obsessed with her romantic classics and goes so far as to try and imitate the way they act, speak and even think. This could have been cute and quirky if she wasn’t the narrative voice of the story. As it is, it very quickly became pretentious with a sense of clearly trying too hard. It worked in the dialogue, but I found it overdone and annoying in the rest. In addition to that, Polly lacked the charm of Anne Shirley or Emma Woodhouse that endeared readers to them in spite of character flaws or exaggerations. If I was around 11 when reading this book, it may not have bothered me, but as an adult it did.

Most of the characters are two-dimensional and lack depth (and the opportunity to build it). Everything is very surface level with general characters: like the terror child or the so in love parents, or the cranky older single lady. They didn’t feel like real people.

On top of that, the plot was fairly predictable and nothing new. We could tell where the story was going from the very beginning which is not always a problem if the execution is done well but it didn’t do much for me here.

In spite of the flaws, this book was still entertaining and, as I can see a young girl enjoying it and it being a middle grade target audience, I felt it should still get a positive rating.