Alright, let's be honest. This book was ridiculous. I wrote it with my best friend when we were twelve (for reference, I'm sixteen). At the time, it felt like a huge achievement. After all, we'd just written an entire novel based on an epiphany that I had in my seventh grade history class. Well, now, as I'm skimming the chapters to proofread and make it sound remotely like it wasn't written by a middle schooler. To me, it didn't look entirely like it was written by a middle schooler, but there are definitely some things in there that I thought were ridiculous.

You may be wondering why I chose to publish this book at all if I can dedicate an entire chapter just for making fun of it. I'm publishing it because it makes me nostalgic and it's something I'm proud of, so I like to share it.

The first thing I have to say is that my attempts at sounding like a British girl is sad. I would like to formally apologize to anyone from England who happened to read this and saw how an American middle schooler thinks British people speak. I've never been to England but I doubt anyone would say, "It's been such a long time since I've been in an estate." I made Hellen excessively formal for no reason whatsoever.

Now, I've got so many things to say about this book so let's get into the details.

Characters 

I realized how impossibly manipulative Hellen is. She makes me a little bit more mad at her every chapter. I mean, in the first chapter, she goes on about how persuasive she is and she is talking to her father's boss to essentially persuade him to give her father a promotion. Then she goes to America and when she meets Charlotte mother, she makes herself cry merely to tell this woman that her parents are dead. Let's remember that both of Hellen's parents are very much alive. Also, Hellen gives her brother for being a theater nerd (it's not an insult; I'm a nerd too), but then we find out that she loves Shakespeare just as much as he does.

Next up, Charlotte. We made her extra dramatic, which is fine, but we also made her sister start crying literally any time there was a conflict. Again, also fine. I was like that too at that age. However, Charlotte's clumsiness is ridiculous. She falls down the stairs at least twice in the book, if not three times. It gets a little bit repetitive. 

All I have to say about Charles is that he is annoyingly persistent. I mean, he literally kidnaps Charlotte to take her on a date.

Logic

Yes, there is a separate section for the logic in the book. Thinking about it has made me laugh for years. 

Let's start with Hellen. She clearly has some serious problem with handling her problems. At the beginning of the book, Hellen gets so mad at her father that she literally packs up and ships out. Literally. She ships off to another continent. Then she does the exact same thing at the end of the book because her brother gets mad at her. 

I shouldn't even mention the whole thing with the wedding, but I'm going to anyway. Why is it that when Charlotte tells Hellen she doesn't want to get married, Hellen goes "I know how to get you out of it" and her idea is to marry somebody else that Charlotte doesn't even like? Oh yes, I don't want to get married. Go ahead and make me marry someone else. That'll get me out of the whole wedding. Then Hellen's way of getting Charlotte to marry this other guy is to give the guy a wig and expect everyone to believe it's Edmund! Somehow, they do? Alice doesn't, but she's a different story. 

There's also the little detail that Hellen just lets her brother fight with their host. Instead, she takes the girl they are fighting over (who happens to be crying) into a store to buy dresses. Then later she finds out that a guy she finds attractive likes that girl and gets mad at the girl.

Hellen is by far the most illogical character, but there are others, so let's move on to Charles, shall we?

There aren't quite as many things about Charles in the first book, but one of the big things is one of the main details of the character. Why does he flirt with Charlotte in front of her fiancé, while he knows they're engaged? Then later, Charlotte wants to leave a party she doesn't want to be at, so he literally drags her over the fence to take her on a date. Like I said, he's very persistent. 

Most of the things I have about Charlotte revolve around her falling down the stairs. Of course, there's the first time she falls that she's caught by Edmund. Her first instinct is to punch him. I suppose that would make sense in some contexts, but I don't think she ever said thank you to Edmund, even after his nose stopped bleeding.

The other thing I have to mention about Charlotte is her engagement party. She uses the party as a chance to try to get Charles off her back. Her way of getting him to stop flirting with her is to have her best friend, Delilah, walk up to him and start quoting Shakespeare. Then that doesn't work, so Charlotte is surprised that it doesn't work and she gets bored and leaves  her own party to go make a flower crown in the meadow.

Finally, Alice. I love Alice. She's always as bold as she wants to be, regardless of what everyone else thinks of her. She deliberately glues her eyelids open with tree sap because she gets tired and doesn't have time to sleep. Then, she flat out growls at a wolf! Somehow, that scares it away. 

Plotholes and Other Randomness

Why did Hellen mention when the Page siblings got to Rhode Island that they didn't have a lot of money because they left it in England, but they proceed to be able to afford apples to pay for their ride to Connecticut, three expensive dresses, and a ticket to France?

How did Hellen accidentally buy a ticket for the wrong ship??? Did she just get on the wrong boat and have them take her ticket anyway like in Home Alone 2?

What is Charlotte's hatred toward nicknames? People have used nicknames since around the 13th or 14th century.

Why did I make it to where the Pages don't celebrate birthdays when people have celebrated birthdays since the ancient Egyptians? I think I looked up when the song was written and that wasn't until the late 1800s so my brain went "NO CELEBRATIONS" but that's not how that works.

There's also my little historical innaccuracy where I mentioned the Grimm brothers' fairytales when they weren't even alive yet. Oops...

Alright, I'll end my little rant there. I have an entire sequel to this novel that I'd be happy to release. It's almost as ridiculous as the first one. If any of y'all are interested, post on my board!

Thanks for reading Daughters of the War!