Palace Beautiful

I saw Palace Beautiful recommended on Shannon Hale's blog and thought it sounded like a good book.  It's about sisters Sadie and Zuzu who move to a new town and find an old journal in a secret room in their attic.  Along with their new friend Bella, they begin to read the entries in the journal and learn about a girl named Helen who lived through the influenza epidemic in their town (and the world) in 1918.  The girls become enthralled by the story and try to find out if Helen survived.

This was a cute story that sparked enough curiosity that I finished the book.  But, I felt like the writing style itself wasn't great.  I felt like a lot of the book was kind of predictable or cliche.  It reminded me of English teachers who say to "show not tell" in your writing because this book seemed to do a lot of telling where I felt like showing would've made it a stronger book.

Rating: * (1/3 = It was okay)