It was the best of prom, it was the worst of prom.
Miranda Tate returns for her senior year at Bard Academy and she is counting on two things: Prom with her boyfriend, Heathcliff, and then graduation from the haunted boarding school where fictional characters come to life. Fate, however, has other plans.
When Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff’s long-lost love, appears on campus, suddenly everything she thought she knew about Heathcliff is changed forever. Catherine seems determined to win Heathcliff back, even if that means destroying Bard Academy and banishing its ghostly teachers – for good.
Miranda and her friends face their most daunting challenge, yet, which will take them for the first time inside the classics that have powered their mysterious boarding school. It’s up to them to save Bard Academy – and prom. Can Miranda change her destiny and Heathcliff’s? Or is this one story that was written in the stars?
My Thoughts:
Upon starting this series ages ago, I was hooked. The idea of the worlds of classic literature mixing with the present reeled me in. And at first, it was entertaining. Now, in A Tale of Two Proms, it’s simply redundant.
Aside from the worlds playing switcheroo and allowing the characters to travel into the classics, not much differs in the plot. Miranda, her friends and the school are still in danger, and she’s still trying to be together with Heathcliff. But as a reader, I just wasn’t convinced of the insecurity – or rather, the need of it . How much more could the poor boy do to prove his love? It felt straining even to me. The aforementioned danger is rather predictable (if you’ve read the previous books in the series); it’s new, but not new. New in the sense that it involves different classics and enemies, yet not new in that they’re all still after the same thing/ending. The drama is certainly at the forefront of A Tale of Two Proms, and not the story or character development. If you’re hoping for more from Miranda and the gang, you won’t find it in here.
And maybe it’s just me, but this time around I feel the writing itself is a bit lacking. Sentences don’t flow smoothly and the narration is highly repetitive. Most times I wanted Miranda to stop thinking and get a move on with the story. Then again, it didn’t help that I could predict the upcoming events.
What kept me holding on to the story was wanting to know its resolution. I’d followed the series this far. I wanted to know how it ends.