Ellie Engle Saves Herself Review

Well, this was kind of disappointing.

Ellie Engle Saves Herself by Leah Johnson is a middle grade novel about 12 year old Ellie Engle, who loves superhero stories. On the first day of school, an earthquake happens, and after the earthquake Ellie gets magical powers where she is able to bring dead things back to life. Ellie has mixed feelings about her new powers, and her best friend Abby tells her to keep it a secret. She accidentally exposes her powers while in her science class, because she accidentally brings a frog back to life, and everyone starts calling her "Frog Girl". Pretty soon she is famous all over town, and her friend Abby gets jealous about this. Life is not the same now that everyone knows she's basically a real life superhero with superpowers! At the same time, Ellie deals with her rocky friendship with Abby while getting to know some other people in her life better. 

I'm gonna be honest, this book did not live up to the hype for me. While I was reading it, I thought the story was very interesting, but there were some things happening that I didn't really like. For one, I thought the story overall was very rushed, which led to many things feeling underdeveloped. At the end I felt that the book felt more like the first book in a series, not a standalone. 

I also really did not like the main character's friend, Abby. She was sooo toxic towards Ellie! It annoyed me that Ellie was trying to stay friends with her. I honestly thought it would have been a better story if Ellie realized halfway through that she and Abby were no longer compatible with each other and they stopped hanging out. Ellie could've spent more time with her new group of friends. Besides, it's a part of real life when it came to their age group. People don't always stay friends with the friends they had in elementary school. 

So yeah, I gave it three stars. 

Have you read any disappointing books this year yet?