Review: The Fold

The Fold

An Na

It’s the last day of school, and Joyce has to find her courage. Today, she’ll ask her crush, John Ford Kang, to sign her yearbook. But her day goes all wrong. First she gets a huge zit and leaves her yearbook at home. The worst thing, however, is after she buys a new yearbook (fifty dollars!), and finally asks John to sign it, he mistakes her for someone else.

She knows she isn’t as pretty as her sister, Helen, is. But this event seemed to prove it to her. So when her aunt wins the lottery and offers Joyce a chance to get the eye fold surgery, she embraces the idea. Trying a temporary solution only reassures Joyce of what she wants to do. She can’t understand why Helen seems so disappointed in her… until she finds out her sister’s own big secret.

From a summary like that, it seems as if there isn’t anything that someone could not like about this novel. Many of my friends highly recommended An Na, praising her novel Wait for Me. So after reading this, I just wonder how someone who so many people rave about could write a book as horrible as this?

Yes, you might have guessed it. This is my first negative review. And believe me, it was hard to write. So let’s start with Joyce. It just amazed me how selfish and shallow she really is. She only worries about her looks and her crush and completely ignores her friends and family. Speaking of which, the book doesn’t cover a lot about her family. What is mentioned is extremely brief and sometimes confusing. I would have loved to know more about almost any other character in this book, especially her sister Helen and her friends. That would have made for a much richer story (and a much better novel).

Another thing: if you totally get embarrassed because your crush mistakes your name, not once but twice (he mistakes Joyce for Helen when she’s trying out a temporary eye fold), then why would you keep trying to impress him? Seriously. She needed to get a life and faced that there was someone right in her face for her and he was much better for her, too. I wasn’t very impressed with The Fold.