Puppet by Pauline C. Harris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Penelope is an orphan; James and Jed are a very promising adoptive family. Penelope would very much like to go and live with them and they are very happy to have her – all she has to do is agree to become a marionette. After all, who wouldn’t want the ability to run faster and be stronger than anyone else? Actually though, being a marionette isn’t as easy as it sounds and Penelope would very much like to go back to the way things were before. Only it appears that Jed can’t do that. Maybe it wasn’t such a great bargain after all?
The premise of this book is very promising – I really liked the idea of the girl with superhuman powers learning how to use them safely and being forced to confront the responsibility as well as the excitement. This did make the book very real to me and I really enjoyed that part of the story.
Once the Administrators got involved, I did feel that things started to get almost rather silly and the clever ideas at the beginning started to become diluted with the focus almost coming away from the marionette ideas and much more into the political arena. By the time the conclusion came, although I was not surprised, I was very disappointed with the direction the story had taken; it didn’t seem to be the book I had started to read at all.
Nevertheless, it was quite a quick and easy read with much to commend it to someone who likes an easy to digest and action-packed adventure. Personally, I prefer less action and more intrigue and I felt this story, although promising much of that at the start, didn’t really deliver it overall.
I Am Always Reading 