Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Fiction


Ella Minnow Pea and her family live in Nollopville, a fictional island off the coast of South Carolina. The country is named after Nevin Nollop, the person who came up with the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" and the country idolizes Nollop. At the city center stands a statue of Nollop and his famous phrase in tiles.

The entire novel is a bunch of letters, mostly between Ella and her cousin, but also between other characters in the novel. When a tile containing a single letter from Nollop's phrase falls off the monument, the city council decides to ban the letter from usage. Anyone that is heard using the word or seen writing it is given a warning, then a whipping, then banished from the island. But soon, more and more letters start to fall from the monument until only LMNOP are left.

I had heard so many good things about this book and I have to say I was a bit let down by it. While it was a very unique concept and quite interesting to see an author skirt around the inability to use specific letters in his writing, I found that overall the novel fell a bit flat.


Rating:

(3.5/5)

Read for:

3 comments:

Debi said...

I'd never heard of this, but I have to say it sounds kind of fun. Sorry to hear it was a bit disappointing!

Jeane said...

That sounds so curious. I'm disappointed you were disappointed, or I'd pick it up.

Lauren said...

I think I was disappointed because I was expecting so much from it. Maybe now that you expect it to be a so-so book you'll really enjoy it? :)