13 Little Blue Envelopes

 

I loved the premise of this book, but I felt that it fell WAY short and suffered from a severe lack of plot and character development. This was a book about a girl who runs around Europe following instructions left by her aunt with no real point to anything.

This book is about a girl named Ginger who's aunt has passed away leaving her money for travel and 13 Little Blue Envelopes, each containing a set of instructions/tasks to be completed before the next can be opened. These envelopes take Ginger all across Europe.

Ginger is a shy introvert who doesn't get out much, and with these envelopes, her aunt (I assume) hopes to help her become more extroverted, to help her enjoy herself more.

Ginger really irritated me throughout the entire book. Here she has been given an opportunity of a lifetime, to backpack through Europe, and she squanders it. Yes she completes, the tasks contained in each letter, but she walks around doing these things like a zombie. She just goes from one task to the next with no real thoughts of her own. She does not deviate from the tasks at all.

She was in London and didn't see Big Ben, The London Bridge, The Tower of London, Stonehenge! In Scotland, no Princess Street Gardens. In Paris not Eiffel Tower. Amsterdam and Denmark, more of the same. Are you kidding me!

Then, at the end of the book, Ginger looks at a poster of her aunt's favorite painting, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere by Manet.

Ginger says "Aunt Peg had explained it, but she'd never gotten it. Now the girl's flat expression in the midst of all the activity, all the color...it made a lot more sense. It was a lot more tragic. All of that activity in front of her and the girl wasn't seeing it, wasn't enjoying it."

Well no shit!