Monica (crazy_4_books)'s Reviews > White Fox

"SISTERS BOND WHILE TRYING TO SOLVE THEIR TWISTED FAMILY'S DARK SECRETS!"
IMPORTANT WARNING: This book totally spoils the twist of Sara's first novel "The Tenth Girl". If you're interested in reading that book, DO NOT read "White Fox" first, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!
It was hard for me to decide what to rate this book. On the one hand, this book may appeal to a larger audience than Sara's debut novel "The Tenth Girl" because: first, it's a more standard-ish mystery suspense novel aimed to YA readers mainly with no strange end twist that might get readers upset. But for me, it lacked exactly what I was expecting to find that had her first novel: a darker Gothic atmosphere, some over the top crazy twists and more adult content. So, it may work better than "The Tenth Girl" as successful marketing, but did not turn out to be a five star for me & I had very high expectations.
Ten years ago, enigmatic film star Mireille Foix disappeared from Viloxin, her Mediterranean island home, leaving her pharma tycoon husband and two young daughters bereft. Eighteen-year-old Manon and 17-year-old Thaïs have lived with their aunt in New York City ever since, and their father’s death the previous summer still stings. Tai is puckish and effervescent, with “beautiful gemstones of stories that she’s sharpened to points” and musical laughter that hides deep insecurity. Noni, on the other hand, is a bookish and unabashedly melancholy young woman. When they get an invitation to return to Viloxin, the “Eden” of their childhood, as guests of honor at a retrospective of their mother’s work, they can’t pass it up. Soon after their arrival, Tai discovers White Fox, a legendary unfinished script penned by her mother. The screenplay, which is nestled in between Tai’s and Manon’s narratives as well as that of Boy, a darkly mysterious third narrator, may hold the key to Mireille’s fate. Desperate for the truth, Tai and Noni are enticed into an eerie and darkly seductive puzzle box of enigmatic clues, revelations, and danger - summary I just copy and paste from the web.
What I liked and what I was dissatisfied with:
The sisters: having been estranged for years, bond over the course of a week and build a more stable and stronger relationship. If you're looking for books about sisterly bonding, this one works perfectly. The setting: it's intriguing as it says the summary, but it could have been much eerier and Gothic if the content would have allowed it to be. The plot: the structure is mixed media, inserting the pages of the script left by their mom between chapters. However; the mystery itself is quite simple to solve, there aren't many suspects around, and 420 pages dragged on. The characters: the sisters are better developed characters, but the villain(s)/antihero turned out to be very one dimensional which is very common in YA books. On the praise, someone compared it to Marisha Pessl's "Night Film". I can see that because of the mixed media format and the intriguing setting, but Pessl's book is richer in all those aspects, perhaps because it's aimed to adults. So, while the rating for Sara Faring's two books remain the same: four stars, this one is 3.5 rounded up and "The Tenth Girl" is 4.5 rounded down, remaining her debut novel my favorite one.