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What do you do when you are all alone, with no friends at all?
Elizabeth is apprehensive about going back to Hill School. For a start, it has now become the Hill School for Holistic Learning. Her best friend has left school and she is all alone.
And when school begins, everything is different. There are no exams or classes, they have to talk to trees and do weird things like dance yoga. For the class project, Elizabeth is teamed with with three girls - Mahrukh, whom she knows slightly and Ayesha and Maitreyi, two new girls whom she does not like. As if this weren't bad enough, Elizabeth manages to lose a historic journal ...
Elizabeth is apprehensive about going back to Hill School. For a start, it has now become the Hill School for Holistic Learning. Her best friend has left school and she is all alone.
And when school begins, everything is different. There are no exams or classes, they have to talk to trees and do weird things like dance yoga. For the class project, Elizabeth is teamed with with three girls - Mahrukh, whom she knows slightly and Ayesha and Maitreyi, two new girls whom she does not like. As if this weren't bad enough, Elizabeth manages to lose a historic journal ...
128 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 5, 2018
The book opens with Elizabeth, the protagonist, feeling blue because her school- Hill School- is undergoing a massive change and becoming a 'holistic' school, with a new management and new principal. Many parents, sceptical of this new philosophy of 'holistic education', have pulled out their kids and admitted them to other schools. Elizabeth's best friend, Pallavi, is one such student, who is moving to a boarding school. Awkward, reticent Elizabeth is dismayed at this new turn of events, particularly the sweeping changes at school- students are encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings (that introvert Elizabeth balks at), bond with trees, participate in 'dance yoga' and the likes. It's tough for reticent Elizabeth to make new friends- the new girls in class are just too different. Ayesha is a snooty Delhi girl who hates being sent to a boarding school so far away from home; Maitreyi is zany and comes from an even more 'weird' school. Mahrukh, despite being an existing classmate, is not much better- she is blunt and direct. So Elizabeth is lonely and blue.
Things settle down somewhat, and the four girls are assigned to one group to do a project on the history of the food of their little town. Elizabeth, being firm friends with the school librarian, manages to get her hands on an old precious journal-cum-recipe book belonging to the enigmatic founder of Hill School, Madhavi Sultania. One day, after a visit to Madhavi Sultania's granddaughter Suman Sultania (herself an old woman now) to get more details about Madhavi's love for cooking for their project, Elizabeth realises that the priceless journal is missing from her bag. Did she lose it in her carelessness? Or did someone- Suman perhaps?- steal it? And why? The girls resolve to solve the mystery and save themselves from major trouble for losing such an old treasured book. But before unravelling the mystery, they get tangled into a lot more trouble!
I liked the plot of the story (a tempestuous term at school for the lonely protagonist that ends with her making new friends) and some of the characters- Maitreyi, Mahrukh and the fluttery principal Palak Nanda. But there are weak points that prevent this from becoming a classic, beloved school story. First off- the characters are not given enough depth or detail for us to know them. How can any reader love (or hate) someone they hardly know? Secondly, the protagonist Elizabeth comes across as a moaning, self-pitying goody-two-shoes rather than a lonely heartsick girl. (Not replying to any of one's best friend's mails for a whole term just because one is sad, is just rude) And last, the mystery is almost too simple, with no layers of intrigue to uncover. But perhaps the mystery of the enigmatic Madhavi is like an overarching arc that stretches across the entire series? I live in hope. The series definitely has promise....but it does need work before it can become a memorable series, loved by generations of readers.
Things settle down somewhat, and the four girls are assigned to one group to do a project on the history of the food of their little town. Elizabeth, being firm friends with the school librarian, manages to get her hands on an old precious journal-cum-recipe book belonging to the enigmatic founder of Hill School, Madhavi Sultania. One day, after a visit to Madhavi Sultania's granddaughter Suman Sultania (herself an old woman now) to get more details about Madhavi's love for cooking for their project, Elizabeth realises that the priceless journal is missing from her bag. Did she lose it in her carelessness? Or did someone- Suman perhaps?- steal it? And why? The girls resolve to solve the mystery and save themselves from major trouble for losing such an old treasured book. But before unravelling the mystery, they get tangled into a lot more trouble!
I liked the plot of the story (a tempestuous term at school for the lonely protagonist that ends with her making new friends) and some of the characters- Maitreyi, Mahrukh and the fluttery principal Palak Nanda. But there are weak points that prevent this from becoming a classic, beloved school story. First off- the characters are not given enough depth or detail for us to know them. How can any reader love (or hate) someone they hardly know? Secondly, the protagonist Elizabeth comes across as a moaning, self-pitying goody-two-shoes rather than a lonely heartsick girl. (Not replying to any of one's best friend's mails for a whole term just because one is sad, is just rude) And last, the mystery is almost too simple, with no layers of intrigue to uncover. But perhaps the mystery of the enigmatic Madhavi is like an overarching arc that stretches across the entire series? I live in hope. The series definitely has promise....but it does need work before it can become a memorable series, loved by generations of readers.
March 21, 2020
It's an entertaining read. But I found that the voices of the girls were not distinct enough. I had to keep asking who said this? Was it Ayesha/Mahrukh/Elizabeth/Maitreyi? Only Elizabeth in the beginning of the story had a distinct voice. That of a bored teenager. But that also changed. Also the dialogue was very formal. All of them spoke in full sentences. Highly unlikely in real life. I felt the ending was a bit rushed. But still it was fun.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews