Betty Boop Puzzle 
by Guest Writer Roberta Shore

Betty Boop Puzzle - Roberta's Review

Maybe I could rate this moderate if it were pleasant to piece together. It was not.

Quality: poor. The good points - it comes in a small box sealed with clear stickers and includes a poster. There were no missing pieces. That’s it. The pieces are thin, not sturdy, many were damaged. Piece fit was extremely loose. There was a lot of puzzle dust in the sealed plastic bag and in the box.

This was not an easy puzzle. I wish I had resisted this nostalgia purchase. I actually like to piece large areas of similar color; at first glance I considered the six Betty’s would simplify the build. There weren’t that many major colors so sorting would be easy too. So wrong, so novice. But I’m learning, if only by trial and error.

Yes, I found the edge pieces and sorted by color. My first reality check came building the frame. A corner piece was broken. When moving any number of connected pieces they broke apart. The frame was correct but some outside edges did not quite match up - not exactly a confidence builder.

I sub sorted out totally black, totally white, black and white, black with bits of color, white with facial lines, all the pieces that spelled Betty Boop, attitude, sugar and spice, and ooh la la, the roses, the cherries, the crown, and the headbands, background and clothes for each Betty. The rest of the pieces were sorted by their primary color. So many pieces were random cut it was not that useful to lay them out by shape. I built the words and slid them in position.

Even with all that sorting it was painfully slow going. I blame most of that on poor quality. Having to put ill fitting things back together repeatedly, it was so tiresome. I wasn’t going to quit, but it was hard to muster up one of puzzling’s best qualities - having fun.

The colors were everywhere, and there were a lot of details in the background. Concentration level plummeted. Finally, I placed every piece except for the black and white parts of the 6 faces, which I deliberately left for last. I began to have fun as those filler pieces went into place. I had been working on it over 4 days.

The faces - yet again I asked myself “what was I thinking?” Not exactly areas of similar color at all. Betty needed more than lips! Eyes, eyebrows, lashes, curls - I repeat, this was not an easy puzzle regardless of quality. Now I was annoyed with myself for misjudging this illustrations requirements.

Challenge - I don’t mind taking one on as long as I see progress commensurate with the difficulty of a puzzle, hopefully without quality issues. I started this hobby only about 8 months ago. I took baby steps, a 500 piece rectangle, then a 500 piece round, then a 750 piece puzzle by MasterPieces. I remember feeling accomplished, otherwise I don’t recall much about the effort. Frankly, I wasn’t taken with most of their puzzle illustrations, so I didn’t buy more. It’s possible this wretched puzzle was a one off.

But, yes, I bought more puzzles including this one not that long ago. And there are other ones in my stash I wouldn’t choose now, knowing more of what I like to puzzle. It has to be an illustration, well, unless it’s a gradient. But I do favor large areas of similar color over “busy” -for one thing, it cuts down on the sorting. Reading above you see I am a super sorter, but it is far from my favorite task.

Now, if I could just think more before I buy.

My ratings: Quality: D, Fun Factor: could have been B+ or better.

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