The phrase "mixing an adult’s and a child’s perspective according to no logic other than the immediate exigencies of the plot." suggests hodgepodge and patchwork as the correct choices.

hodgepodge and patchwork are negative terms. The novel is really good, so 'a paradigm/ an innovation' pair should work indicating that a new literary style was innovated. Thoughts?

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In my PERSONAL opinion analyzing with the usual strategy of + and - words which seems the only tool the students have to tackle a TC/SE is detrimental.

The best strategy is to understand the sentence. You do not have ONE of a few tools but you must have an arsenal to tackle the GRE verbal questions.,

That said, the sentence tells us that the piece was a mix of things even though the result is not optimal

The two words we need must reflect this simple concept.

the only two words alike in meaning are B and E.

B tells us that the work is a mash-up of which the result is not that great.

E tells us that what the author did is a patchwork just for the sake

I hope this helps

regards