Hello & welcome back to Trotting Through Life and well, we've reached the final review of the Rarity Retrospective. We've now looked at her episodes, the EQG Rainbow Rocks short, 4 comic books and now today, we are looking at the chapter book, Rarity and The Curious Case of Charity.
Author
G.M. Berrow
G.M. Berrow is the go-to author for the My Little Pony chapter books. She's quite good at capturing the personalities of the ponies. I'll freely admit that I haven't dabbled much in the chapter books as I haven't had much interest. And I find the comics to be more interesting in terms of expanding the Equestiran universe. Now having said that, I've read the first two books that Berrow wrote for the line of MLP Chapter books. Twilight Sparkle and The Crystal Heart Spell (which I reviewed) and Pinkie Pie and The Rockin' Ponypalooza Party!
Out of the three chapter books that I've read from Berrow, Berrow's Twilight Sparkle book is perhaps my favorite as the Pinkie Pie one was just too depressing. And as for this Rarity book, not bad but nothing special.
Cover
I've never been the biggest fan of these covers as they're are just the ponies posing with items that relate to their personality. They're kinda boring. And the sad thing is, some of the chapter books that don't deal with the Mane Ponies have good covers. Look at one of the covers from the Daring Do collection or the cover of the upcoming Friendship Games chapter book.
And by the way, Berrow did write the Daring Do books. Though it appears that she did not do the novel for Friendship Games. So at best, this is a minor complaint and I get what marketing is doing here as they want the child's eye to be drawn to the pony on the cover.
The Plot
The basic gist of this book is that Rarity has become a mentor to a new and upcoming fashion student, Charity Sweetmint. Through the program of H.O.O.F (House of Outrageous and Opulent Fashion). It starts out innocently enough as Rarity while mentoring her young pupil is also ignoring outfits for the Ponyville Choir that she's supposed to be working on. And over the next couple of days, Rarity's tips for her student simply consist of giving her fashion tips, when Charity needs help with a fashion line for a H.O.O.F Fashion show that she's working on. Things seem to be going well, that is until Rarity tells her pupil...
"Just do exactly as I do."
When Charity takes to be to be just like Rarity. So, Charity starts addressing the other ponies similiarly to how Rarity addresses her friends. Through this, they work on the Choir outfits some more and at one point, Rarity goes out. And since they'd finished the outfits, Charity decides to deliver them. After going to the spa to get a makeover and her mane dyed purple. A couple days later, Rarity meets with her friends at the Castle of The Two Sisters to tell them of her concerns. And they all mention how they've noticed this. This gives Rarity an idea of how to show her pupil that she should be herself. Just as she finds, Charity out hunting fro gems with Spike or Charity calls him, Spikey-Wikey. Which causes Rarity to get a bit jealous. But by adorning a green wig (the natural color of Charity's mane) and acting like her before Charity started acting like Rarity, Miss Rarity shows Charity, how silly, she's been acting. Though, this interaction does end with one great line from Rarity.
Let's get one thing straight. That's my Spikey-Wikey. Capiche?
The book ends with Charity winning the H.O.O.F Fashion show and set up a window display in a department store of her collection of outfits inspired by seaponies. All in all, this book isn't bad but the message of be yourself is just one that I've seen so many times in other forms of media that it's started to lose it's punch. It's not a bad message to give young kids but when you've seen it so many times over and over again, it doesn't hold much weight. And having said that, I'd say that this book is at best okay. It's not bad but unless you are a diehard Rarity fan, I'd say skip it and even then, if you are, it's really not worth reading because unlike the comics, these books really don't have an all ages appeal to them.
Characters
Rarity
It was interesting to see Rarity in the role of mentor. She wasn't quite good at it, when the book began as she used Charity and didn't teach her. And Rarity may have given her pupil, the wrong idea, when she told her...
"Just do exactly as I do."
But she came around towards the end and it was funny watching her get jealous over someone stealing her style.
Charity Sweetmint
Charity is a pretty sweet character and never meant any harm and only acted like Rarity because she idolized the fashion pony. Which hey, I get but at the same time, I think with this character that the book was trying to say, it's okay to idolize someone but don't let that idolization take over your life to the point, where you become that person and forget, who you truly are.
My Final Thoughts
This book isn't bad but like I'd say, it's not worth tracking down unless you are really interested. It does have some good lessons and the message of be yourself is a good one to give the young audience that reads these books but as someone that has seen this message quite a few times, I've grown tired of that particular message. Ah well, join me next time as we finally close out this event by looking at my Top 6 Rarity Moments.
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