|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
my rating |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1484720970
| 9781484720974
| 1484720970
| 3.81
| 26,623
| May 05, 2015
| May 05, 2015
|
liked it
|
In a magical universe that makes absolutely no sense… The various kingdoms seen in Disney animated films are now a single entity, the United Kingdoms/S In a magical universe that makes absolutely no sense… The various kingdoms seen in Disney animated films are now a single entity, the United Kingdoms/States of Auradon (the book uses both). Many of these movies take place in the real world and some during specific eras, but never mind. Auradon also boasts modern technology and clothing. The leader of Auradon is the Prince once known as the Beast (not to be confused with the Artist Formerly Known as Prince), who is referred to as “King Beast” by not only his subjects, but his wife and son. The King banished all the villains and dangerous criminals to a penal colony, the Isle of the Lost. They include Maleficent, the Evil Queen, Jafar, Cruella de Vil, Captain Hook, Ursula, and Dr. Facillier… Wait, you say, didn’t most of those characters die at the ends of their respective movies? Yes. But our “heroes” brought them back from the dead to incarcerate them. All this was twenty years ago. On the Isle, where everything is grimy and foul, we meet Mal, Maleficent’s angst-ridden daughter who takes out her anger on her peers. She’s friends, in a self-serving way, with Jay, strapping son of the sorcerer Jafar and accomplished pickpocket. Their paths tangle with Carlos, Cruella de Vil’s geeky son, and Evie, the vain, sheltered daughter of the Queen who poisoned Snow White. Feeling threatened by bubbly Evie, and desperate for her mother’s approval, Mal goads her squad into helping her search for her mother’s missing Dragon’s Eye scepter. The thief who lays hands on this artifact will sleep for a thousand years… Meanwhile, in the aggressively happy-go-lucky land of Auradon, Ben, the son of Belle and the King, is good-natured and handsome but not terribly bright. Ridiculous plot devices are converging to make the perfectly healthy King abdicate in favor of Ben, who fears that he won’t measure up. The lad has been having strange dreams, of a girl among the lost souls on the Isle, which give him an idea for a kingly gesture… Content Advisory Violence: Carlos and Jay are both severely neglected at home, and Maleficent verbally bullies Mal. Very little actual physical violence. Sex: At a party, Mal lures Evie into a trap by telling her Jay is waiting to make out with her in a coat closet. Language: Nada. Substance Abuse: The book goes so far out of its way to avoid this that it becomes silly. Mal convinces Carlos to throw a party at his mom’s house while she’s away (where? They can’t leave the island, remember?). At this wild party, the kids imbibe root beer. Also, Cruella vapes these days rather than smoke. Nightmare Fuel: The gargoyles at the bridge might frighten very young readers. Those who have a fear of tiny spaces or being buried alive might not do great with the scenes in Cruella’s secret passages or the treasure room. Politics and Religion: As the kids scrounge for the answer to a riddle, Evie suggests the Golden Rule, which she dismisses as “Auradon greeting-card nonsense.” Jay distracts Dr. Facillier at a key moment with a stolen pack of tarot cards. Overcrowded Crossovers and Accidental Allegories As I said in a review of a different book, Disney might be the only corporation I know of that commissions and publishes their own fanfiction on such a grand scale. They now have three properties that are mega-crossovers featuring all their beloved animated characters: - Kingdom Hearts, an anime-influenced video game. I know very little about it, but it seems well-loved online. - Once Upon a Time, a gothic primetime soap. I really enjoyed the first half of Season 1 but after that, the cast grew far too big and the plotlines too convoluted for my taste. That said, plenty of people enjoyed it. - Now there’s Descendants, an unholy combination of The Selection, Percy Jackson, High School Musical, and…The Great Divorce . One of these things is not like the others. So how is Descendants similar to The Selection? They’re both silly stories with dystopian elements tacked on. Both feature a handsome prince who’s too pure for this world, who falls in love with a girl from the lower rungs of society who initially despises him and everything he stands for. I have no idea what Maxon saw in America, and I have no idea what Ben sees in Mal either. The romance is only hinted at here, but is the main plot of the first Descendants movie. It’s like the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus series in that everyone’s identity mostly comes from their parents. A big part of both franchises is the young heroes’ struggling to break free of their larger-than-life parents, but still—their parentage and the powers, virtues and vices that come with it are the main attribute of each character in both universes. It’s like High School Musical since they’re both impossibly light-hearted, wholesome stories about high school, presented as Disney Channel musicals. The Great Divorce is a C.S. Lewis novel about Heaven, Hell, and possibly Purgatory. A group of people from a miserable, hateful city are given a chance to stay in a beautiful kingdom for a while. They’ve done nothing to earn this; it was granted to them by the merciful Son of a great King. The travelers find that they’d rather stay than go back where they came from. I doubt that any of the Disney execs who concocted this franchise have read The Great Divorce. (Sometimes it seems like Lewis has been haunting Disney since they dropped the ball on the Narnia series; a lot of his favorite themes have seeped into Mouse House IPs of late, especially the Star Wars sequels). The resemblance is all the more startling because it was clearly unintentional. I’m pretty sure that the allegory is accidental because SO LITTLE THOUGHT WENT INTO THIS STORY. The glaring flaws are not the fault of Melissa de la Cruz, who makes the best of the material she was given. The blame lies squarely with the committee that dreamt this thing up. The world-building in this franchise is so sloppy, it makes the Star Wars universe look as airtight as Middle-earth by comparison... Consistency? What’s That? 1). No explanation is even VENTURED for why all these characters, whose stories take place across several worlds and a millennium or two, now live in the same era and geographic location. You’d need some serious hocus pocus to pull it off, but at least try to give a reason. 2). And WHY is this kingdom of Auradon a modern place? Weren’t the timeless settings of Disney fairytale movies a big part of their appeal? The franchise itself isn’t consistent on how much tech the characters have. In this book, Ben muses that there must be more to life than the shiniest new chariots (his parents originally lived in the 1700s and would have used carriages), yet Cruella has a run-down car that Carlos is often forced to repair. In the movie, the kids arrive at school in a spiffy black limo. And Mal uses a modern tablet for the visual aids while she narrates the opening. 3). The Beast is the LAST Disney Prince who should be dealing out punishments and refusing to consider others’ views. It’s like he’s learned nothing from his time as a monster, cursed precisely for his lack of compassion. If anything, he should be erring on the side of mercy. To quote King Edmund the Just, “Even a traitor may mend. I have known one who did.” 4). Not only did they get the poor guy’s character completely wrong, he is referred to throughout as “King Beast.” Would it have really hurt to give him a name? A lot of fans call him Adam, which doesn’t sound quite right for an 18th century French prince, but really suits him as an individual. What would have been interesting is if the Islanders called him “King Beast” behind his back. As an insult. 5). Same thing with the Evil Queen (who is often unofficially named Grimhilde), the Fairy Godmother, the Genie…The characters actually refer to the Evil Queen as “Evil Queen” as if it’s her name. This would work in a full-blown satire like the Shrek movies, but the Descendants franchise seems like it’s striving for poignancy over comedy. 6). The kids’ names are mostly a mess too. Mostly, not all. Evie is actually a rather clever name for the daughter of someone who tempted a girl into eating the wrong apple. Maleficent is certainly arrogant enough to name her kid after herself; maybe Jay is short for Jafar Junior as well. And Ben is a name that I’m just fond of—a character named Ben is always a good guy, even if he starts out a bad guy and has to be dragged kicking and screaming back to the Light (looking at you, Ben Solo). But the other original character names range from uninspired to cringey. For instance, Mulan and Li Shang named their daughter Lonnie. After five minutes of searching Beyond the Name, I came across Zhihao, a unisex Chinese name meaning “will, purpose, ambition” + “brave, heroic, chivalrous.” (I accept that I got this information off the internet and apologize if the translation is incorrect). Now doesn’t THAT sound more like Mulan’s style? 7). Some of the characters are way off-base. Jafar acts more like the Governor from Pocahontas than himself, and the Evil Queen seems to have turned into Mrs. Bennet. [image] 8). Let’s not acknowledge the existence of Doug, son of Dopey. The idea that someone took advantage of that childlike, helpless character is frankly disturbing… Who Exactly is Our Target Audience? The Isle of the Lost also suffers for being a middle-grade book. Not that being YA these days would have saved it. It seems that YA books are getting racier and darker, MG books are getting more infantilized, and no author can bridge the gap unless their name is Rick Riordan. Ideally, this series would have crossover appeal. It’s clean and has the middle-grade emphasis on friendship and cool clothes, but the characters are teens—half of whom are what Kenny Watson ( The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 ) would call “official juvenile delinquents” —and their familial and romantic relationships could be super angsty. Indeed, the Descendants movies seem to have a large teen-and-young-adult fandom even with their shallow emotional beats and garish aesthetic. I just think that the series, both the books and the movies, could be better if allowed to explore some of the unpleasant or edgy parts of the story. A big one is how some of the villains were raised from the dead to be imprisoned on the Isle of the Lost. Who among the Disney good guys has the power to do this, and why would any of the good guys consider it justified? Reviving your enemies just to punish them is a villain move. Punish the living criminals by all means, but let the dead rest. Some small ones are the party Carlos throws at Mal’s behest, a wild party among delinquent teens where they dare to break out the…root beer. Or the scene where Mal acts disgusted by Cruella’s smoking habit and the puppy-pelt enthusiast reassures her that it’s only an e-cig. (Which might have its own health risks, but that’s outside the scope of this review). Am I arguing that children’s books should feature more substance abuse? Of course not! But bending over backwards to avoid it, in a context where it’s clearly happening, just insults the reader’s intelligence. How would Cruella even get e-cigs? All the gadgets on the Isle are supposed to be hopelessly outdated. The root beer thing isn’t unique to this book; there’s a joke about the notoriously rowdy centaurs breaking into some in The Last Olympian and it jarred me right out of that book too. The only time I’ve ever seen it work is in Diary of a Wimpy Kid II: Rodrick Rules, a scene that mostly succeeds thanks to great acting from Steve Zahn and Devon Bostick. [image] [image] Other than that, either make a joke out of the trope itself, like the “age-appropriate beverages” gag from Over the Garden Wall, or have Carlos secretly switch real beer for non-alcoholic beer like in Freaks and Geeks. Or, hear me out, let the kids drink real beer. Because they’re rotten and proud of it, and the whole point of the series is that they learn to be kinder, more responsible people. This also applies to their ostensible quest: Mal wants to effectively kill Evie by putting her to sleep for a thousand years. I don’t remember this even being discussed by anyone except Mal. Isn’t that a major part of their arc as friends? Of course she thinks better of it once they get there, but that doesn’t absolve her of her murderous intent. Seriously, the only actual villainy committed by these kids is petty theft, white lies, and easily-remedied acts of vandalism. That’s about as much of a redemption arc as the Hagenheim books, where characters are desperate for absolution because they talk too much or they stole something under duress when they were five. Please. Give me Zuko or Edmund Pevensie—someone who actually messed up and needs forgiveness—over this cast of mildly rebellious hooligans. [image] [image] Conclusions I don’t think any of the myriad flaws in this book are the fault of the author. Melissa de la Cruz was probably given a very short, harried timeframe to write this, and I doubt any of the main characters, settings, or MacGuffins are hers. If anything, this book proves that her prose is pretty good, because it flows so nicely that the ridiculously convoluted plot and backstory seem simple. The characters of the kids are all consistent and exactly what they set out to be. Mal is conniving and arrogant, Jay thinks he’s hot stuff, Evie and Carlos are actually sweet, and Ben is a cinnamon roll. The scene where Carlos and Evie leave the party to watch mainland programming on an ancient rabbit-eared TV is genuinely poignant. This book won’t hurt or scare anyone, but it might have been better if it dared to, just a little. As is, it’s a valiant attempt to make a confusing, half-baked franchise palatable, and it does a decent job. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Jul 29, 2019
|
Sep 04, 2019
|
Jul 29, 2019
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0062001051
| 9780062001054
| 0062001051
| 3.36
| 2,799
| May 19, 2015
| May 19, 2015
|
really liked it
|
In this alternative nineteenth-century timeline, the Arthurisian (British) Empire has mastered so much technology that cities can float in the air, th
In this alternative nineteenth-century timeline, the Arthurisian (British) Empire has mastered so much technology that cities can float in the air, their residents travelling by airships. Seventeen-year-old Jonathan Gouden lives in one of these floating cities with his scientist father, mother, and feisty sister Hannah. Jonathan looks forward to attending a university and carrying on his father’s legacy of scientific discoveries, but he has very little going on in his life at the moment. Until his city, Fata Morgana, is struck by a mysterious disease called the Venen, which kills all who contract it within five days. The epidemic claims the life of the Queen. Soon Jonathan’s mum and Hannah fall sick. Meanwhile, the King is demanding that Jonathan’s father produce a cure yesterday. The King, on the advice of his advisor Lady Florel, wants this new drug developed from a hallucinogen called fantillium, which produces marvelous illusions. If Dr. Gouden can’t produce, he risks execution. But fantillium has terrible side-effects, as Jonathan learns after following Lady Florel to a looking-glass version of Arthurise, called Nod’ol, where all of society is addicted to the stuff. The Nod’olians do nothing but ingest their drug and watch magic shows, where skilled illusionists produce hallucinations they all can share. Inside and out, they are turning into monsters. All but Anna, a dead ringer for Jonathan’s sister, who longs to escape the corrupted city and reunite with her family. It’s her, Jonathan, and Jonathan’s nemesis, the soldier Lockwood, against a tyrannical queen and her broken subjects. What’s the ethical choice, when the only cure you can give your family is worse than the disease? Content Advisory Violence: Some of the illusions conjured involve people getting stabbed or burned alive. They never die in real life, but the experience of dying in an illusion is still painful and can produce life-after-death experiences. A young woman is fatally shot. Sex: Some mildly vampish behavior from a young female illusionist who can’t make up her mind if she wants to kill Jonathan or make him her pet. He firmly refuses her advances. Language: Nothing. Substance Abuse: THE WHOLE PLOT is about the dangers of hallucinogenic drugs. Nightmare Fuel: Accumulated doses of fantillium cause a process called Rivening, where people sprout extra limbs, organs, and even faces. Constantine is so disfigured that he always wears a mask with a snout. Divinity has an eyeball on her shoulder and implies that her other mutations are too embarrassing to mention. And Queen Honoria (view spoiler)[has eyeballs up and down her arms. No wonder she named her airship the Argus (hide spoiler)] . Politics & Religion: The life-after-death experiences are notable for a lack of spiritual imagery. Conclusions Illusionarium has some things in common with the illusions its characters create: it’s not terribly deep, and sometimes it’s impossible to tell what’s going on. But what an evocative, exciting mirage! If you’ve read Dixon’s previous novel, Entwined, you’ve probably noticed her expertise on Victorian culture, which makes for a vivid setting. It works even better here. The visuals and set pieces are excellent, and her love of all things Victorian clearly shines through. The three main characters—Jonathan, Anna, and Lockwood—all complement each other well. Their quest to escape a vast, hostile complex while bantering at each other may seem very familiar, but in a welcome way. [image] The book sticks out in a lot of good ways. While it certainly has a strong female lead (or two), it also has a kind and clever male protagonist; in no way do they detract from each other. It also has its priorities in the right place. All the characters agree that saving lives is far more important that their romantic angst or rivalries. There’s also a really cute friendship that evolves from two characters who previously despised each other. Recommended if you liked Garth Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom series or Sharon Cameron’s Dark Unwinding duology…or if you liked A.G. Howard’s books but weren’t crazy about the love triangles and melodrama. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Apr 07, 2019
|
Apr 23, 2019
|
Nov 17, 2018
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0764221760
| 9780764221767
| 0764221760
| 4.12
| 5,757
| Mar 31, 1999
| Apr 01, 1999
|
really liked it
|
The disputed Canadian territory of Acadia, 1753 Catherine Price has just married Andrew Harrow, a captain in His Majesty’s army. They are very much in The disputed Canadian territory of Acadia, 1753 Catherine Price has just married Andrew Harrow, a captain in His Majesty’s army. They are very much in love, but he is almost always away from home. They live on a volatile piece of land, occupied by their fellow British colonists, French Catholics loyal to Louis XV, and Huguenots (French Protestants, historically persecuted by, and exiled from, their mother country), who swear allegiance to neither king. The drums of war echo in every hill and valley of this land. With Andrew usually absent, Catherine finds herself stuck in a small-minded settlement, full of suspicious, petty matrons who have no wish to associate with her. Her mother died when she was a little child, her cold, imposing father is in the army like Andrew, and she has no other family. Between Andrew’s visits, Catherine obsessively cleans the house, flips through her Bible, and takes long walks in the woods just beyond the settlement. On one of these walks she bumps into Louise Belleveau Robichaud from the neighboring Huguenot settlement of Minas. Catherine can only speak childish French, Louise only stiff and limited English. But the two young women discover that they are the same age and facing many of the same problems… Louise is also newly married, to Henri Robichaud, who’s quickly becoming a community leader despite his youth. Both of Louise’s parents are alive and loving; she has several siblings and is related to almost everyone in her tight-knit village. Yet the folk of Minas are poor, especially compared to their English neighbors, with each generation fighting desperately against hunger and cold. They have no love for the French crown—the memory of their martyred ancestors is far too near and dear for that—but that doesn’t mean they’re about to swear allegiance to George II either. Sensing bad times ahead, Louise has turned to Scripture and nature for solace and guidance, just like Catherine. As the two keep meeting up and chatting, they learn enough of each other’s languages to have real conversations, and study their Bibles together. They trade herbal remedies and husband stories, and share the anxieties and thrills of their first pregnancies. Catherine is embraced by Louise’s giant family. At first Andrew is quite alarmed to hear that his wife has been taken under French wings, but Louise and Henri adopt him too. But many in the village of Edward have been spying on the Harrows and accuse them of treachery. As Andrew’s position is endangered, Catherine hatches a compassionate plan that may still end in tragedy… No content advisory needed. This is one of the cleanest adult books I have ever read. The problems are pretty grown-up, but there’s nothing in the book itself that a twelve-year-old couldn’t handle. Conclusions When I read Oke and Bunn’s Acts of Faith trilogy, I enjoyed the story, prose, and characters. But I thought that the likeable cast acted more like American (or Canadian) Protestants of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries than the first century Jews and pagan Romans that they were supposed to be. I figured the authors might be more at home writing about people closer in space and historical time. And indeed, they are! It’s clear that our authors know and love the land of Acadia; the characters—Catherine, Andrew, Louise, Henri, Captain Price, Marie, Jacques, and Pastor Jean Ricard—seem sprung from its soil. With the exception of the (understandably) bitter Captain Price, they are all the sort of people you would want for neighbors, unfailingly generous and eager to help. I do think that the whole concept might have been even more effective if Louise and her village had been Catholic. The English bore no great love for any French, but they found “Papists” especially disgusting. Don’t misunderstand me—the persecution of the Huguenots is probably one of the most shameful chapters in the history of both royal France and Catholicism—but it seems like the only acceptable French characters in Christian historical fiction must be Huguenots, and that annoys me. There was also a throwaway line in this book about a warmongering, royalist Catholic priest because of course there was *eye roll* . Not saying it didn't happen, obviously it did, but since the majority of French Canadians were Catholic I wish they had been represented better, especially since reaching out to people from different cultures is the whole point of the story. The only other flaw was the twice-repeated reference to a city in the thirteen lower colonies called Washington. Given that Washington DC wouldn’t be founded for another thirty-seven years, and George Washington was just a twenty-one-year-old surveyor in 1753—does anyone know where the heck this book is talking about when it mentions Washington?!? I know it’s a nitpick, but it was bothering me. When only three sentences out of a novel bother me, the author(s) did an excellent job. This was a surprisingly engrossing story that introduced me to a time and place I knew almost nothing about. The prose is good, the characters lovable, the setting deep, and the crisis at the end unexpected and wrenching. Now I’m eager to find out what becomes of the Harrows, the Robichauds, and their “beloved land.” ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Aug 13, 2018
|
Aug 25, 2018
|
Jul 29, 2018
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0718026268
| 9780718026264
| 0718026268
| 4.08
| 8,827
| Nov 01, 2015
| Nov 17, 2015
|
really liked it
|
Holy Roman Empire, 1413— Rapunzel is the daughter of a travelling midwife. She knows she’s adopted, and the midwife, Gothel, has at least two incompati Holy Roman Empire, 1413— Rapunzel is the daughter of a travelling midwife. She knows she’s adopted, and the midwife, Gothel, has at least two incompatible stories of how Rapunzel came into her custody. This is highly suspicious to nineteen-year-old Rapunzel. Gothel also has an irrational hatred of all men and all written words, and she uproots the family and moves as soon as their neighbors notice they exist. Rapunzel is now quite certain that her mother is insane. Yet like many victims of abusive parents before and since, Rapunzel is emotionally frozen and can’t run away. Much as she has come to loathe and distrust the woman who raised her, she still feels indebted to Gothel—and is sure Gothel would just track her down and treat her even worse than before. On their way to the city of Hagenheim, Rapunzel and Gothel are beset by bandits. Here their paths cross with that of Sir Gerek, a troubled young knight in service to Duke Wilhelm of Hagenheim. Despite her adoptive mother’s attempts to keep them separate, Rapunzel is intrigued by the surly Gerek; he finds her very physically attractive but will not bother courting a peasant with no inheritance. Yet, at the prompting of a monk, he teaches Rapunzel to read, in both Latin and their native German. Literacy gives Rapunzel the confidence she needs to finally break her chains and run. She reaches Hagenheim ahead of Gothel and takes a job as a kitchen maid. She’s in for angst, intrigue, and a great revelation… Content Advisory Violence: A battle in the castle results in a few (non-graphic) casualties. Rapunzel is repeatedly menaced by a particular bandit and has to fend him off with a knife. The worst violence takes place in the past: a drunken man throws his wife down the stairs during an argument, then leaps from a fourth-story window when he sobers up and finds her dead. A boy beats his younger brother. A child is kidnapped and almost drowned by her abductor. A young woman is drugged, kidnapped and imprisoned by her deranged mother. Sex: Gothel repeatedly tells Rapunzel that Men Only Want One Thing and will resort to violence to get it if sweet talk doesn’t work. (view spoiler)[Gothel’s perspective comes from her experience—she’s the illegitimate daughter of Hagenheim’s previous duke and blames her mother for being seduced and raising her in poverty. The cycle repeated when the young adult Gothel was seduced by an official, who promised to marry her but sailed to England for a job opportunity and left her pregnant. The baby died, and Gothel’s family blamed her. This seems to have driven her mad in earnest and prompted her to kidnap Rapunzel (hide spoiler)]. Having grown up with only this person’s perspective, Rapunzel is terrified that every male she meets intends to either seduce or rape her. At first she’s not afraid of Gerek because he makes it clear he disdains her. But eventually even she figures out that he’s merely masking his interest, and this scares her—it takes her a long time to be certain that he's a good man who sincerely cares for her and would never cause her grief. Language: None. Substance Abuse: Claybrook and Co. are usually sloshed. Nightmare Fuel: Everything about Gothel is terrifying…her use of physical violence on the defenseless, including children; her psychotic rants that splice mangled truths with outright falsehoods... Conclusions I have a hunch that Rapunzel might be Melanie Dickerson’s favorite fairytale, because she really gets this story. The Golden Braid is a fine adaptation of the original story and a rousing YA period romantic adventure in its own right. I’ve had my gripes with previous installments in this series, but with this one, I can finally see what the hype was about. I’m glad I stuck around. Gothel is a rather brilliant villain. The other villains in this series have been either serious but underdeveloped (the Duchess in The Fairest Beauty and Ruexner in The Captive Maiden) or the type who twirl their capes and announce their evil plans to everyone within hearing distance (Moncore in The Healer’s Apprentice, the stepmother in Captive Maiden, Claybrook in The Princess Spy and this). Gothel is leaps ahead of any of them, a masterful portrait of evil. She’s the worst possible nightmare, the one that can come true. We all know people like her—paranoid, poisoned by hatred, victims who go on to victimize others. Rapunzel is a believable abused child, badly damaged by Gothel, but too strong inside to be destroyed. Watching her and Gerek overcome their paralyzing fears, reject the past, and help each other forge a healthy adulthood is truly inspiring. They also have snappy conversations and tangible chemistry. I really enjoyed this book. So, I suspect, will many of you. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Aug 09, 2018
|
Aug 13, 2018
|
Jul 20, 2018
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0805092676
| 9780805092677
| 0805092676
| 4.20
| 104,711
| Dec 08, 2010
| Oct 08, 2013
|
liked it
|
Gwyneth “Gwen” Shepherd is in a race against time—past, present and future. She’s the last in a long line of time travelers, tied to the infamous Comt
Gwyneth “Gwen” Shepherd is in a race against time—past, present and future. She’s the last in a long line of time travelers, tied to the infamous Comte de St. Germaine, hunted through the ages by a rival secret society called the Florentine Alliance. The time travel gene only appears in one family member per generation, and up until a few weeks ago, everyone assumed it was Gwen’s overachieving cousin Charlotte. Now our awkward, rather goofy heroine has days to cram a lifetime’s worth of education. She must also put aside a broken heart—a monumental task for a teenage girl—after the apparent betrayal of her crush and fellow time traveler, Gideon de Villiers. An evil plan incubated for centuries is finally about to come true. The plan depends entirely on Gwen, and only she can prevent its unfolding. If only she had any choice… Content Advisory Violence: A young woman is stabbed and has an out-of-body experience before magically healing. A young man is shot repeatedly and left for dead, but heals (off-page) the same way. These scenes are slightly gory, but not bad compared to the stagecoach shootout in Ruby Red. Sex: Gideon and Gwen exchange several snogs, as do (view spoiler)[Raphael and Leslie (hide spoiler)]. A girl is doing karaoke at a party and a drunk boy hollers at her to strip (she doesn’t). At this same party, a girl is caught canoodling with a much younger boy, and a drunk girl remarks that Gideon has a cute butt. Xemerius makes a joke or two about Gwen losing her virginity, which doesn’t happen. Language: The word “sh**” is used a handful of times. Milder profanities include “hell” and “bloody.” Substance Abuse: Racozky is always in an altered state. Everyone at Cynthia’s party except the four main characters get decidedly sloshed and look quite ridiculous. Nightmare Fuel: St. Germaine is still a creepy character. But there’s nothing here like the random demon at the end of Sapphire Blue. Conclusions Kerstin Gier’s Precious Stone trilogy is what you’d get if you threw The Princess Diaries in a blender with the Stravaganza series and sprinklings of the Bartimaeus Sequence, Doctor Who and the Italian Renaissance conspiracy plotline from The Da Vinci Code (although this series has no interest in space opera, aliens or religious vendettas). It’s hard to follow and very silly indeed. It’s also thrilling, cute, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. My only gripes with this final installment: 1) Too much time spent worrying about relationships 2) The book jacket lied—the book didn’t answer all my questions Gwen is actually a realistic sixteen-year-old girl—scared and whiny with no sense of priorities. The book knows this about her and doesn’t sport with our intelligence by pretending that she’s a great leader, or smart, or brave, or even particularly useful. I thoroughly enjoyed her narrating style and could occasionally even relate to her. Gideon, Leslie, and the rest are also allowed to be flawed and awkward, which makes them seem much closer to real kids than the average cast of a YA book. I found Charlotte’s fall from grace a little too close to something that would happen in a Disney Channel movie, but your mileage may vary. I counted forty-eight pop culture references, although alas, Gwen never namedrops her favorite bands, Queen and ABBA. I thought that her reliance on their music to keep herself afloat said a lot about her character—she’s a bit old-fashioned, likes to sing and dance, and is almost proud of her dorkiness. She can be poppy and fluffy but also knows when to say, (*stomp-stomp-CLAP*) “You got blood on your face/You big disgrace/Somebody better put you back into your place…” To me, the main difference is that Queen are indisputably one of rock’s greatest bands, while ABBA…aren’t. But it was really cute that Gwen liked them both. The weakest part of the series winds up being the world-building. (view spoiler)[Why Gwen sees ghosts is never really explained. The horrifying fiend from the end of book two is never integrated into the story or even mentioned again. Then what was the point of that whole scene? (hide spoiler)]. Overall, this trilogy is the literary equivalent of a milkshake. It’s sugary and insubstantial and I wouldn’t want a steady diet of it. But it makes a nice occasional treat—sweet, harmless, and fun. Recommended, especially to anyone who liked the Stravaganza series or The Selection. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Jul 25, 2018
|
Aug 06, 2018
|
Jun 20, 2018
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0310730988
| 9780310730989
| 0310730988
| 4.02
| 8,671
| Nov 04, 2014
| Nov 04, 2014
|
it was ok
|
The heart of the Holy Roman Empire, 1413 Margaretha is the eldest daughter of Wilhelm and Rose Gerstenberg, Duke and Duchess of Hagenheim. She’s oversh The heart of the Holy Roman Empire, 1413 Margaretha is the eldest daughter of Wilhelm and Rose Gerstenberg, Duke and Duchess of Hagenheim. She’s overshadowed by her adventurous older brothers, Valten and Gabe. She enjoys riding horses, she talks way too much, and now she’s entertaining a suitor from across the sea channel, a handsome but stuffy and arrogant Englishman named Lord Claybrook. Margaretha has very little else going on in her life. Enter Colin, a British youth who wanders into Hagenheim from the forest, feverish and left for dead. The castle healer tends the lad, and Margaretha becomes fascinated by him. When his fever breaks, he realizes that only Margaretha can speak his language—this is a MAJOR historical inaccuracy which I will be tearing my hair out about shortly. Colin reveals to his sole interlocutor that he’s on Claybrook’s trail. The man murdered a woman back in England and is now responsible for at least one death on German soil. Understandably, Colin fears that Claybrook has nefarious intentions regarding Margaretha and her people. He asks her to spy on His Lordship. Everyone thinks Margaretha is a bit of a ditz, so no one will ever suspect her. Margaretha doesn’t trust herself to do this job. She can neither stop talking for five minutes straight nor keep a secret. But she’s the only person present who can speak both English and German (argh, I’m getting to that) and is also willing to help. (There’s also a priest who can speak a variety of languages, but like most Dickerson priests, he’s a sniveling coward. Another rant for later). No sooner has she agreed to the plan that she overhears Claybrook in private audience with the Before Margaretha can tell her family what’s she’s stumbled into, her dad and Valten leave Hagenheim to consult with her mom’s family in nearby Marienburg, and Claybrook begins to work his nefarious scheme… Content Advisory Violence: More carnage than previous installments in this series—not super gory, but still a bit jarring in a cutesy period piece like this. The book opens with Colin trying to revive his friend John, who was brutalized by Claybrook and company. We also get descriptions of Claybrook throwing a pregnant girl into the river to hide his having fathered her child. Margaretha clobbers assorted lowlifes with whatever heavy object she can find, often leaving impressive injuries. The Captain of the Guard cuts a few bad-guy throats. Various hoodlums and highwaymen threaten our heroine with theft and (implied) rape. They get away with the former but not the latter. There’s a battle at the end with no significant deaths. Sex: Colin and Margaretha like each other right away but spend most of the book angsting over it and not communicating with each other because propriety, which was very low on the average medieval person’s list of priorities in real life but never mind. They kiss a few times toward the end. Some brigands leer at Margaretha and threaten to strip her to her undergarments and sell her gown. This does not happen. Language: Nothing. Substance Abuse: Lord Claybrook is a drunkard, because we won’t believe he’s evil unless he suffers from every single vice known to humanity. He gets impressively sloshed the night before the battle and can’t accomplish the worst of his evil plans. Nightmare Fuel: Colin has a brief flashback of when Philippa was retrieved from the river, her corpse pallid and bloated. The Catholic Elephant in the Room Melanie Dickerson’s Hagenheim books remind me a great deal of Mary Hoffman’s Stravaganza series. Both are full of exciting adventures, cute pairings, fun set pieces, a wonderfully atmospheric world, and fairytale influences. Unfortunately, both are also hamstrung by clunky narration, info-dump dialogue with few if any distinct character voices, sloppy editing, and a very casual relationship with the historical record. That last one is kind of a problem when you’re writing historical fantasy, to say nothing of historical fiction. [image] With Hoffman, we get stupid stuff in the Talia-verse like silver and gold having reversed chemical properties or Mary I, Elizabeth I, and Edward VI all being the offspring of Catherine of Aragon, eliminating (according to Hoffman in her author’s note for City of Masks) any need for a Protestant Reformation. Because we all know how much Martin Luther cared about Henry VIII’s succession anxiety. Not to mention that the people of Talia are more or less openly worshipping the old gods when only the wonkiest Renaissance eccentrics did that in our world. Hoffman’s breaks with reality seem benignly motivated, though—I don’t think she put much thought into it beyond “This would look cool.” With Dickerson, though, there is definitely a pattern to the discrepancies between her image of medieval Germany and the real thing. 1. Dickerson’s characters pray in the stream-of-consciousness style favored by modern Evangelicals and Charismatic Catholic youth groups. Like so: Father God, You are mighty to save—help me to [insert scary thing I don't wanna do here]. This is not how they prayed in the Middle Ages. The Hagenheim universe is completely bereft of litanies, rosaries, or any pre-written prayer. The characters also never pray for the intercession of the Virgin Mary or any saints. These things were all a huge part of medieval culture. Ignoring them is like writing a book about an Amish community that has electricity. 2. Many of Dickerson’s characters carry partial or complete Bibles in their native languages. The first German Bible didn’t appear until 1522, and the first English one not until 1526. 3. Priests, nuns and friars made up a sizeable chunk of the European population during the medieval period. Yet in the Dickerson-verse, we have only a handful of priests. The live ones are all cowards and mercenaries; the good ones are dead before the story begins. So far we’ve seen only one monk—a friar of unspecified order who behaves more like a nineteenth-century American itinerant preacher, and sounds more like a modern evangelical minister, than he resembles anything from fifteenth-century Germany. Nuns don’t appear to exist in this world at all. 4. All of these characters have crosses, worn upon their persons or hanging on their walls. These are plain crosses, with no corpus carved or even painted on. The plain cross was not used in this manner until John Calvin, over a hundred years after these stories take place. As a Quora user rather insightfully phrased it, “The difference between the cross and the crucifix is that we remember Christ crucified when we look upon the crucifix, and Christ risen when we look upon a plain cross.” (Links at the bottom of the review). Medieval and Renaissance Christianity focused on the Passion of Jesus, sometimes at the expense of the Resurrection. The contemporary Protestant focus on the Resurrection, sometimes at the expense of the Passion, is a very recent historical shift, beginning in the United States in the nineteenth century. The medieval worldview was very influenced by St. Augustine of Hippo, preoccupied with sin and atonement. The modern Christian worldview prefers to focus on hope and redemption. I’m Roman Catholic and I can see that the medieval Catholic view was depressing and a bit morbid; I’m not arguing that that’s the only or even right way to worship. But that was where they were in those days. Authors should represent that faithfully. If Dickerson so dislikes Catholic culture that she’ll go this far out of her way to avoid writing about it, she should have kept the German setting but moved the stories forward a hundred years, allowing for Protestant characters. Either that or set them in an imaginary land very like medieval Germany, but not quite the real thing, where she could shape the religious practices of the inhabitants to her taste. Lingua Franca I posted a nitpick of a status update while reading this, complaining that any German speaking English at this time was a huge stretch. My brilliant friend Tiffany pointed out that the language of diplomacy, and the British aristocracy, during the era of this book, was not English anyway, but French. When William the Conqueror sailed from Normandy and subjugated England in 1066, he set up his followers as feudal lords over the Saxons who already lived there. The Normans spoke various northern and western dialects of French. Isolated from France for generations, the new gentry’s multiple tongues eventually gelled into a single dialect, now called Anglo-Norman French. Meanwhile the English language continued to develop, but was spoken almost exclusively by the serf class. Since the lords and ladies didn’t interact much with the peasants who farmed their land, it’s unlikely that a lad with Colin’s social standing would have learned the language of said peasants. He certainly would not have considered that his mother tongue. As a noblewoman, Margaretha might indeed have gotten a bit of education in foreign languages, but it’s highly unlikely that the language of the English underclass would have been among them. Continental Europe did not really take England seriously as a world power until the Tudor Dynasty, which would not rise until 1485, seventy-two years after this story takes place. But if Marge were among the learned noblewomen of her time, she would have certainly learned French. France was a formidable country then, and its language was (and still is) associated with high status and sophistication. So in a more realistic version of this story, the whole Hagenheim family would likely be able to communicate with Colin, given that they and he would be speaking slightly different French dialects. This information is not hard to find, so why would Dickerson ignore it? Did the publishers think that the YA audience wouldn’t be able to comprehend that the wealthy Brits spoke French once upon a time? Or was pre-Revolutionary France just too Catholic to talk about? The Boy in the Ugly Green Clothes Dickerson’s retellings of “Snow White & the Seven Dwarves” and “Cinderella”—The Fairest Beauty and The Captive Maiden, respectively—stuck reasonably close to the source material and were much better for it. (I didn’t like the second half of Maiden much, mostly because it diverges from the original tale to the point where one can no longer tell what story it’s supposed to be). Unfortunately, The Princess Spy is closer to book one in the series, The Healer’s Apprentice. Apprentice is a “Sleeping Beauty” retelling, and Spy is based on “The Frog Prince” but it would be hard to connect either novel to the tales that inspired them without help. The defining feature of “The Frog Prince”, for me at least, is that at first the princess wants absolutely nothing to do with that frog. And one really can’t blame her, because he is extremely annoying. He hops after her wherever she goes, insisting on sharing her food and sleeping on her pillow, threatening to tattle on her when she resists. Dude comes on way too strong, has no concept of personal space, and can’t tell when he’s not wanted. Compared to Beauty’s Beast, the Frog Prince is a hard character to like; the former enchanted prince accepts his lady’s judgment on him, the latter manipulates fate as hard as he can. So while the princess is certainly spoiled and should have known better than to bargain with a clearly enchanted talking animal in a deserted place, I still empathize with her when she finally snaps: …she became bitterly angry and threw him against the wall with all her might. "Now you will have your peace, you disgusting frog!" [image] Yeah, she didn’t save him with a kiss in the original. Tough love. Obviously the dynamic between these two characters would have to be changed a little in a full-length novel like this, and the prince would need some tweaking in order to not come across like a major creep. But in a retelling, one should still be able to see a trace or two of the original story in there somewhere. Unfortunately, we only have two references to the original tale in this novel: the garish green hand-me-down clothes that Colin spends the first half of the book wearing, and him salvaging a trinket of Margaretha’s that fell down a well in exchange for her helping him. The most glaring discrepancy is that Margaretha is never, at any point, repulsed by Colin. The “disgusting frog” angle is gone. He’s flawlessly handsome from the start. People call him “Frog-Boy” even though the only remotely froglike aspect of his appearance is that temporary green ensemble. Couldn’t he at least have long, skinny limbs and giant feet? An unusually deep voice? I was listening to a Fun song on YouTube once and there were a bunch of girls in the comment section squealing over Nate Ruess’ “froggy lips.” I could easily picture Ruess as a fairytale prince, specifically this fairytale prince, for that very reason. [image] So let’s say that he’s not ugly on the outside. But shouldn’t he still be obnoxious, since that’s the main character trait of the prince in the story? Shouldn’t he still be pushy and arrogant, and have to learn that boorish behavior will only get him thrown against the wall? And shouldn’t Margaretha also be just a tiny bit careless and bratty, to line up with her inspiration? You know, so these characters can learn stuff and grow and change as the story progresses? Of course not. The characters in these books are only allowed to have the smallest of flaws. The adventure part of the book was still lots of fun, but would have been so much more enjoyable if Colin and Margaretha were getting on each other’s nerves the whole time, a la Benedick and Beatrice or Han Solo and Princess Leia. Instead, we got a lot of them moping that they could never be together for stupid reasons that could have been cleared up in two minutes. Dickerson missed an opportunity with John, Colin’s loyal manservant, who could have been brought back in the end as a nod to the original prince’s coachman, Iron Henry, the only character in the story to whom the Grimms gave a proper name. Unfortunately, this character is never brought up again in the novel. Claybrook is too over-the-top evil for no reason to take seriously as a villain. He has all these terrible plans but lacks the intelligence to carry them out. Philippa’s fate was darker than I expected from this series, but that is not a bad thing. Conclusions I liked The Fairest Beauty and thought The Captive Maiden was fun overall. The Princess Spy was fine as an escapist adventure/romance, but the glaring historical inaccuracies were harder to ignore this time around. I find the Gerstenberg family rather charming and will continue to read their adventures, but this was not one of their stronger stories. It’s a largely harmless, squeaky clean teen read—just beware of the Catholic erasure. BIBLIOGRAPHY Cross vs. Crucifix meaning https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Catholic... Medieval Languages http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cperc... https://www.legallanguage.com/legal-a... The original Frog Prince https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm001.html ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Jul 18, 2018
|
Jul 20, 2018
|
Jun 13, 2018
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1613126581
| 9781613126585
| B00FJ7NTP2
| 3.95
| 5,792
| Oct 22, 2013
| Oct 22, 2013
|
it was ok
|
A.G. Howard has a great gift for prose, crafting worlds, and honoring literary traditions. The only blemish in her Splintered series is that, for reas
A.G. Howard has a great gift for prose, crafting worlds, and honoring literary traditions. The only blemish in her Splintered series is that, for reasons I don't understand, the books want us to love Jeb, the main character's obnoxious human boyfriend, and mistrust/dislike Morpheus, the lovably deranged fae creature who not only wants our heroine's heart, but wants her to reach her full and impressive potential. This novella takes place right after the first book of the trilogy. It finds Morpheus mystified (as are most readers) by the hold Jeb has on Alyssa. To better understand, the Netherling kingmaker journeys into the mind of the mortal boy and literally sees through his eyes. On the one hand, this is just the sort of thing Morpheus would do, and he is such a fantastic character that it's a pleasure to spend more time with him. On the other hand, the POV character for most of this story is JEB. And it reveals nothing about Jeb that the reader didn't already know. He likes art. He has a girlfriend who is ostensibly much cooler than Alyssa, but he prefers Alyssa in his heart for some reason. His father was a physically abusive alcoholic, which is legitimately sad, but Alyssa should not be treated like a prize for Jeb because of all he went through. They are not romantically suited at all. I never even bought their friendship. Jeb also has no particular insights on anything that happened in the book. The one reason I'm glad I read this is because Morpheus has an Insurrection Hat. I remembered liking his Hospitality Hat, but an Insurrection Hat is just next-level millinery. Content Advisory: Jeb's daydreams involve scantily-clad girls, among them Alyssa and his actual girlfriend, Taelor. A character has to use their own blood for paint in order to unlock a magical object. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
May 02, 2018
|
May 03, 2018
|
Jan 19, 2018
|
Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||
| 0764218131
| 9780764218132
| 0764218131
| 3.94
| 8,835
| Dec 2016
| Dec 06, 2016
|
it was amazing
|
Jane Bell is a young widow running the family inn of her late husband, John. Brought up as a gentlewoman, Jane was not raised to work, and struggles w
Jane Bell is a young widow running the family inn of her late husband, John. Brought up as a gentlewoman, Jane was not raised to work, and struggles with maintaining a business. She gets help from her farrier, Gabriel Locke, but little to none from her brother-in-law Patrick. And Jane is beginning to learn that John was keeping secrets from her, financial and maybe worse. As if Jane weren’t stressed out enough, she has to make room for her uptight, disapproving mother-in-law, Thora. Thora’s presence is not entirely unwelcome—she knows this inn better than anyone. But Thora only cares about the establishment. She never liked Jane, and the younger woman suspects that the elder Mrs. Bell wants her to fail. There’s also a hotelier named Mr. James Drake, who just bought Jane’s childhood home and plans to rehabilitate it as a coaching inn to rival hers. But while he’s set up a competition between himself and Jane, James doesn’t want to be enemies… Julie Klassen weaves an intricate web of friendships and courtships forged and sundered and sometimes healed in this novel, the first in a series. The characters and their relationships are very well-developed. Even though Thora garners two suitors and Jane gets three, everyone is so low-key and subtle and English about it that the story never feels like a soap opera. No content advisory included because none is needed. YA and middle-grade readers might find the subject matter dull, but there’s nothing in here that would be inappropriate for them to read. The Christian element of the novel is very discrete and well-integrated; the characters act consistently like Anglicans from Regency England. While marketed as Christian fiction, I can see non-Christian readers who enjoy the Regency genre enjoying it thoroughly. There is an adorable, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bonus for Jane Austen fans in the last few chapters. Nothing shall induce me to give it away. Are you looking for a cozy historical fiction free of violence, sex, and melodrama? Are you a fan of Cranford, Downton Abbey or Lark Rise to Candleford? Then I warmly recommend The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
May 19, 2018
|
May 24, 2018
|
Dec 20, 2017
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1613125348
| 9781613125342
| 1613125348
| 4.18
| 28,023
| Jan 07, 2014
| Jan 07, 2014
|
really liked it
|
Unhinged picks up a year after Splintered left off. Alyssa is about ready to graduate high school, and from there she intends to move to London with J
Unhinged picks up a year after Splintered left off. Alyssa is about ready to graduate high school, and from there she intends to move to London with Jeb, her supposedly artsy boyfriend who acts like a Neanderthal and has no memory of their adventure in Wonderland. Her parents, understandably, are worried about her moving across the ocean with a man, and encourage her to at least marry him first—although they really don’t like Jeb at all (I don’t blame them) and are trying to hold on to their daughter as long as possible. Alyssa has made grudging peace with her netherling identity—a human-looking creature with gauzy wings and sparkles below its eyes, whose abilities range from the cute (communicating with bugs) to the macabre (painting with one’s own blood). But she really wants to forget her royal lineage and be “normal,” and she resents the visits of Morpheus, the dashing Wonderland leader who appears in her dreams to teach her magic. But Alyssa left a lot of trouble behind her in Wonderland, and since she’s not there to fix it, it will follow her until she gives in. What follows is a surprisingly thrilling tale with a great theme: the foolishness of trying to thwart destiny. Alyssa and her mom both learn this the hard way. Content Advisory Violence: There’s fairly gruesome, Tim Burton-esque imagery throughout. People and things get swallowed by evil bookshelves (it makes sense in context) and spit out as grotesque caricatures of themselves. Alyssa sees some scary things in her paintings and dreams, such as a woman getting swallowed whole by a flesh-eating plant, or a dead man bound in cobwebs. Our heroine is stalked through the school halls by what appears to be an evil clown toy come to life. Sex: Jeb and Alyssa kiss way too much—especially since he’s such a loathsome character—and there’s a few times where they consider consummating their relationship on the spot (nothing of the kind actually happens). But luckily Alyssa realizes that she has growing feelings for Morpheus, and she kisses him too. One of Jeb’s clients wants him to paint portraits of her in faerie-themed lingerie, and Alyssa is understandably hurt. When Morpheus gets gravely injured, Alyssa sets him up on her bed, and he jokes that he always knew he’d end up there. Language: A few uses of “bloody” from Morph. Substance Abuse: Some characters eat magic Wonderland mushrooms to help them shrink. Obviously not a literal drug reference, but given what the book is based on, a lot of people will be thinking of drugs already. Anything Else: Nope. Conclusion Unhinged is a fantastic second installment, capitalizing on the strengths of the first book while expanding the world and its lore, developing the characters, and upping the stakes. Howard subtly outdoes many of her fellow YA authors by taking common tropes—especially that old “I kept this secret from you to protect you” chestnut—and examining how a real person with human emotions would react to that. While many of these writers still look at things from a myopic, adolescent perspective, she actually seems able to separate herself from Alyssa, and look at the girl’s angst and confusion with a knowing smile. That said, while Alyssa makes a number of questionable decisions, she has more psychological depth than the average YA urban-fantasy heroine, and her actions are usually believable. She insists that she’s in love with Jeb, but really she’s infatuated with him because he represents safety and sameness to her. Whereas Morpheus, who any reader can see is the superior catch, is repeatedly rejected because he’s asking her to grow up, put aside childish things, and become what she was born to be. Alyssa, whose life has never been stable, understandably clings to those things that have gotten her through up until now: her painting, her skateboarding, her Hot Topic wardrobe and makeup, her crush on Jeb, her friendship with Jenara, and her hatred of Taelor. Then Morpheus appears, and he asks her to Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams [image] But she’s scared, understandably, and refuses. [image] Yet he won’t give up on her. He teaches her, and tests her, knowing she can handle any challenge he gives her. [image] And slowly, she begins to realize that she’s not made for this world, but for that one, and she is even granted a vision to prove it: [image] Jeb is a regrettable character with no need to exist. He is the long-lost twin, or maybe distant ancestor, of Aspen from The Selection, albeit in fairness The Selection is a chick-flick with dystopia sprinkles and a love triangle comes with the territory. But there is enough going on in the Splintered series that the love triangle is needless. Take away Jeb’s status as Alyssa’s boyfriend and all he does is get captured and force her to act. That’s nothing that a family member—say, a younger sibling—couldn’t do (see Labyrinth). I have a feeling that this is going to end the same way as Garth Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom series did, but I guess I’ll find out when I get there. All in all, this was a superlatively enjoyable YA novel that I happily recommend. Just beware of Jeb. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Jan 17, 2018
|
Jan 24, 2018
|
Dec 19, 2017
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0439700930
| 9780439700931
| 0439700930
| 3.74
| 21,958
| Aug 2003
| Feb 01, 2005
|
it was amazing
|
The "Land of Elyon" in the series title is a small nation of fearful settlements, surrounded by a wall. Of the settlements, Bridewell is the closest t
The "Land of Elyon" in the series title is a small nation of fearful settlements, surrounded by a wall. Of the settlements, Bridewell is the closest to the Dark Hills outside the wall, which the settlers speculate are full of criminals and monsters. Precocious twelve-year-old Alexa Daley is the daughter of the mayor of another settlement. Every summer her father goes to Bridewell to consult with the other mayors, and she tags along to scrounge the library for information on the outside world. When she's not reading, Alexa pretends to be an explorer or detective. She won't need to pretend this year. Content Advisory Violence: A man plans a violent uprising which culminates in a siege, albeit with a low body count. The same man menaces a kid and tries to stab her with a poker. A brave squirrel is almost killed by two evil cats. (view spoiler)[The cats eventually get squished by a falling bookshelf. They had it coming, but violence against ANY animals is a no-go for some youngsters. Know your kids. (hide spoiler)] Sex: An adult asks our heroine if she's ever kissed a boy. Just a weird question for a grown-up to ask a kid. Language: None. Substance Abuse: Pervis is frequently hammered. The book does not glamorize his drinking, but neither does it judge him for it. Alexa eventually concludes that he drinks to deal with the stress of his perilous job. Politics and Religion: There are some Christian allegorical elements in this series. They are not obvious in this first book. I didn't find them preachy at all, but your mileage may vary. Nightmare Fuel: Nothing in this installment, but plenty in the later books. Again, know your kids! Conclusion The first installment in Patrick Carman's Elyon series is a solid middle-grade adventure/fantasy/mystery with a well-crafted setting and palpable sense of dread. Alexa is a brave and clever kid who has a good relationship with her dad and other authority figures. She never puts on airs about her intelligence. Looks and boys are not on her radar yet. Despite being very mature in some ways, she's still a kid who loses her temper and gets distracted by "unspeakably gross" things. The story certainly borrows elements of Narnia and Middle-earth, with perhaps a hint of Alice, but Carman does not lift enough from any single source that it ever feels like a rip-off. There's nothing terribly original here either, but it is definitely enough of its own thing to sustain interest, even for a fussy elder stateswoman like myself. Carman says in his afterword that this story began as a serial for his daughters, and the book maintains a bedtime story quality. This should be great for kids 10 and up to read alone, and younger can enjoy it as a read aloud. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Feb 14, 2018
|
Feb 15, 2018
|
Mar 15, 2017
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0763626392
| 9780763626396
| 0763626392
| 4.03
| 27,042
| Jan 01, 2002
| May 10, 2005
|
really liked it
|
Remember when authors talked about landscapes, and you could tell that they might have actually stepped outside once or twice in their lives? Remember Remember when authors talked about landscapes, and you could tell that they might have actually stepped outside once or twice in their lives? Remember when the male lead and the female lead in a YA book were allowed to develop a strong friendship and partnership, and any romance was left for the later books in the series? Remember when male characters admired the beauty of female characters but didn’t act like pigs about it? Remember when not every YA novel featured a love triangle? I remember two series from the last decade that were really popular among my elementary and middle school friends that could be described as Star Wars in Middle-earth. One was Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle. The plot of its first novel, Eragon , was traced over from Episode IV, while book two, Eldest , was more interested in dwarf mythology, scantily-clad Elvish women, and narcissistic descriptions of the author’s self-insert character getting progressively hunkier and more magical. For over nine hundred pages. I want to give that series a snarky re-read soon, but that’s a story for another time. If the Inheritance Cycle were a person, it would be a stereotypical nerd boy who likes dragons, mistrusts women, and is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. And if the Books of Pellinor were a person, they would be the IC guy’s reserved, introspective, gloomy yet idealistic twin sister. Of the two, I would much rather be friends with her than him. In a vast land, studded with peaceful cities amid desolate and ruined stretches like stars and the darkness between them, there’s a petty walled village near the base of the mountains. Thane Gilman is a tyrant in his tiny domain. The servants and slaves are afraid to make a run for it, because Gilman keeps fierce hunting dogs and the mountains beyond are full of evil entities and bloodthirsty beasts. One of these slaves is a young girl named Maerad, a dairymaid who also entertains the Thane and his friends by playing upon her lyre. Maerad’s mother died when she was little, and the other slaves are hostile to her, believing her to be a witch. She has no support network and no hope of escape. Her luck changes when a strange man from distant parts enters the cow-byre, and she is the only person who can see him. His name is Cadvan, and he is one of the Bards, a group of wise and (ideally) benevolent mages whom Maerad had always believed were myths. But it turns out (su-prise, su-prise, su-prise) that Maerad’s bursts of “witchery” mark her as a Bard, too. Cadvan’s path will take him across a dangerous landscape, and now he knows he’s morally obligated to take the girl with him. They will learn that a dark power, once thought vanquished, is rising again (no way!) and that corruption has reached the highest ranks of the Bards themselves. Content Advisory Violence: Cadvan and Maerad are frequently attacked, and sometimes seriously wounded, by supernatural beings, Bards, humans, animals, and monsters. They come across a slaughtered family in a wasteland that includes a baby. Some evil creatures order a child to murder his friend, and when he refuses they kill the second kid anyway. A traitorous Bard sets a harbor and most of its ships on fire. Maerad has scattered, disturbing flashbacks, about the sack of her home before she became a slave; a little girl of about five years, she saw her father beheaded, her mother sapped of her powers, and her home burned. As a slave, Maerad is frequently beaten, and her fellow slaves once tried to drown her in the duck pond. Sex: Shortly before the story begins, a male slave jumped Maerad while she slept and tried to force himself on her. He did not get far in his attempted rape before she snarled a word of power at him that sent him flying and blinded him for three weeks. She remembers this incident and panics after a nice young man named Dernhil gets a bit too excited and kisses her. She panics, he apologizes, and they part as friends. Once they get to a hospitable place and are given baths and clean clothes, both Cadvan and Maerad are struck a bit shy, because they never noticed how good-looking the other one was before. This is not sexual content per se, but I’m not sure where else to put it: Maerad’s menarche has been delayed by poor nutrition, and it hits her unexpectedly. Poor Cadvan is the first to see her after this, and gets almost as panicked as she does. Croggon brings it up three or four more times for no apparent reason. Language: Nil. Substance Abuse: There’s a lot of wine at feasts, but no one ever gets drunk. Anything Else: In Croggon’s “historical notes” at the back of the book, she takes strange pains to clarify that, despite their talk of Light and Dark and Good and Evil, the Bards did not follow any “monotheistic notions” of a personal God. This was fairly obvious from the way Light and Dark are discussed in the book—much closer to the abstractions of Star Wars than the more Biblical Creation-mythology of Tolkien. So I wondered why Croggon had to phrase it like that. It sounded rather disdainful of the Abrahamic faiths, and I thought that was unnecessary. However, one can easily skip the appendices without missing anything interesting. Conclusion The Naming is an odd, hard-to-classify book. Contrasted with other, similar Aussie YA high fantasies from the same general era, it’s much less inventive than Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series, has almost no whimsy or romance compared to Juliet Marillier’s Shadowfell, and is wordy and dour compared to Kate Constable’s The Singer of All Songs. Then there’s the small fact that this 466 (492 only including the appendices) page book has no twists and very little plot, and frequently lifts similes and occasionally even dialogue right out of Tolkien. So what kept me turning pages? Why the high rating? Because Croggon created two wonderful characters in Cadvan and Maerad. They are noble, they are flawed, they have seen far too much death and darkness and it shows in their behavior. They want to help the downtrodden, they want to be bulwarks against the encroaching Dark, but they also know how badly a well-meaning plan can go wrong, and they are wary of everything and everyone. It is beautiful when two souls like theirs begin to open timidly up and trust each other. In this book, it happens with perfect timing, with a lot of sweet, tiny moments of respect and friendship that I think (and hope!!!) might blossom into romantic love. Instead of manufacturing sexual tension and decoy love interests (view spoiler)[(Dernhil dies) (hide spoiler)], Croggon simply stands back and lets the reader observe what a great team these two make in every way. Recommended to anyone who’s getting sick of the instalove and drama that comes part and parcel with YA these days, and doesn’t mind slow-paced chapters with lots of landscape description. You may also like: - The Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix - The Shadowfell trilogy by Juliet Marillier - The Chanters of Tremaris trilogy by Kate Constable - The Annals of the Western Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin - The Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale - Chalice by Robin McKinley ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Feb 16, 2016
|
Jan 29, 2018
|
Feb 16, 2016
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0310749190
| 9780310749196
| 0310749190
| 3.87
| 5,207
| Mar 03, 2015
| Mar 03, 2015
|
it was ok
|
Somewhere that’s kind of like England, supposedly in the year 1390 – For years, the Lord and Lady of Ashby struggled to conceive a child. Eventually, Somewhere that’s kind of like England, supposedly in the year 1390 – For years, the Lord and Lady of Ashby struggled to conceive a child. Eventually, they obtained a relic, a Tear of the Virgin Mary, which would give them what they wished for. (There are already a number of things wrong with the story, but I’m just trying to get through the summary right now). They had to make the Vow of Hannah (I’ll get to it): if they could conceive, their eldest child would be given to the Church as a religious when said child turned eighteen. They only had one child, Rosemarie. Her parents neglected to tell her about this Vow. She only found out by accident after both parents succumbed to the Plague. She was fourteen. Rosemarie is now approaching her eighteenth birthday. She doesn’t really want to be a nun, but has resigned herself to it, seeing no other options. Meanwhile, she struggles for control of her holdings. Abbot Francis Michael is on her side, but treats her like a child. And the sheriff doesn’t take her seriously. Rosemarie has outlawed cruel and unusual punishment in her lands, but the sheriff casually breaks these laws all the time. Our heroine can’t go a day without happening on him boiling an elderly man alive, or caging a young father with rabid rats, for the pettiest infractions. Every time, she makes a grand proclamation that such a horrible thing will never happen on her watch again—but she never actually disciplines the perpetrators, and the cycle continues. Until a month before her eighteenth birthday, when Rosemarie’s godfather shows up unexpectedly. He's Noblest Knight, right hand of the High King, who rides through the land righting wrongs with his band of chivalrous young men. The Noblest Knight has discovered a loophole in Rosemarie’s parents’ Vow: If she finds true love and marries before her eighteenth birthday, she needn’t go to the convent after all. He has picked three of his most valiant, handsome young knights to vie for her hand. One is Sir Collin, a casually gallant fellow with sparkling green eyes and happy manners. One is Sir Bennet, a handsome and vain character. The third is Sir Derrick, who makes it clear that he finds the contest, and Rosemarie, ridiculous. Although he, too, has his moments of broody passion that make Rosemarie’s heart flutter. He’s also the only knight who cares about the poor people in the town or has any concept of hardship. Meanwhile, the Abbot is implementing his evil plan to ruin the contest, force Rosemarie to take her vows as a nun, and take over the world, or at least Ashby. I’m not spoiler-tagging that, it’s all obvious from the start. Content Advisory Violence: This book has an unhealthy obsession with torture. At the beginning, we see a frail elderly man lowered into boiling water. We also hear of a man being eaten alive by rats in a cage. A woman has a device forced into her mouth that will rip out her tongue if she moves. We hear about a man’s heart being carved out of his chest while he slept. Another man is sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered, but this is averted. An authority figure threatens to flay someone alive, but this doesn’t happen either. Sex: Rosemarie perseverates on the good looks of her three suitors, and they all return the favor. Saints alive, it’s all she ever talks about with Collin and Bennet. Derrick’s a bit better but that’s not a high bar to clear. Some kissing occurs. Language: Nothing. Substance Abuse: Not an issue. Nightmare Fuel: See Violence. After a while, the tortures got so overdone that they no longer shocked or frightened me, but your mileage may vary. Politics and Religion: There’s a strong anti-Catholic undercurrent to this whole story, although I’m not sure if it’s born of actual prejudice or mere ignorance. There’s too much material to cover in this one section, so I’ll discuss it below. A World of Pure Imagination Despite the publisher's description, An Uncertain Choice is not historical fiction. Someone in the marketing department thought it would help sales to classify it as such, but Hedlund herself has referred to the saga of the Noble Knights as a fantasy series. At first, place names like Ashby and surnames like Caldwell made me think the book was set in England, but apparently it's a fantasy land that just happens to have no magic, like Megan Whalen Turner's Byzantine-style kingdoms. The book also fixates on torture and gruesome executions. Not only do these scenes jar against the sugary tone of the rest of the story, they're woefully inaccurate. Lords from the same nation-state couldn't just charge around the countryside putting their neighbors to the sword. Petty thieves would not be boiled alive. Hanging, drawing and quartering was reserved solely for traitors to the crown – it would not be casually invoked against a young man falsely accused of murder with flimsy evidence. But all that need not apply in an imaginary kingdom. If these characters live in an imaginary land, than Hedlund can give them any belief system and legal system she chooses. Cat(holic) Chat I love Christian fiction, but as a Catholic, I can't help but notice that a lot of the genre doesn't like Catholicism. This is most obvious in the “medieval historical romance” subgenre. Let's examine how this book uses relics. Relics—objects associated with Christ and various holy persons—were a big part of medieval Christian culture. The most famous Catholic relic is probably the Shroud of Turin. The backstory of An Uncertain Choice, detailed in the prequel novella The Vow, revolves around a relic obtained by Rosemarie’s parents and the Vow they were made to sign to obtain it. It's a phial said to contain a tear from the Virgin Mary, which is not a relic I’ve ever heard of. I think Hedlund might have gotten relics mixed up with the modern phenomena of weeping Mary statues, and it’s also possible that she got the idea from Galadriel’s phial in The Lord of the Rings —interesting, given that Tolkien was Catholic and Galadriel has some Marian attributes. Setting aside the improbable nature of the relic, the book also has no idea how the faithful treat relics. The relic stayed in its display, or reliquary. The worshipper might simply contemplate the relic, or might touch it with something of theirs, like a rosary, believing that a blessing had been transmitted from the holy object to the ordinary one. Relics are not magical objects and have never been treated as such, although miracles have been attributed to them. They were not things that people had to sign over their eldest child in order to possess, as if the Church were Rumpelstiltskin. Then there’s the Vow itself, which Hedlund bases on the Old Testament figure of Hannah, who appears in 1 Samuel 1:2—2:21. Hannah, wife of the priest Elkanah, could not conceive a child. She vowed that if she could have a son, she would send him to the Temple to devote his life to God. The Lord heard her prayer, and her son became the prophet Samuel. So in Hedlund’s universe, apparently couples who wanted a baby could make this same vow. But there are huge cultural discrepancies to be accounted for here. As a Nazirite and a member of the ancient Jewish priesthood, Samuel had many rules to follow, but he could still marry and own property. He was also not the sole heir to a substantial land holding. His world and the expectations on him could not have been more different than those of the silly heroine of this silly book. The whole reason Rosemarie’s parents wanted a baby was to make sure their estate remained in the family, and here they are signing her away to a convent (which isn’t how one becomes a nun anyway, but never mind). Let’s also note that this Vow derives from the Old Testament. Childless Catholics from medieval times until the present are a lot more likely to refer to Sts. Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Virgin Mary, who also struggled with infertility and committed their only child to the Temple, than they are to any Old Testament figure. The fascination with obscure Old Testament figures stems largely from post-Great Revival American Protestantism. There’s nothing wrong with it—in fact, I’ve often thought as a Catholic that I ought to be much more familiar with the Old Testament than I am—but let’s not pretend that anyone in 1390 would have prioritized a rather obscure Old Testament figure over two popular saints with the same concern. Rosemarie also refers to her rosaries as “prayer beads” (cringe) and fingers them idly while she prays, stream-of-consciousness, in her head. [image] The Rosary is not just an object, but a spoken series of prayers that’s tied to it. You start by touching the Crucifix and saying the Apostle’s Creed. Each bead corresponds to either a Lord’s Prayer or a Hail Mary. You pray a set amount of these while meditating on an episode from the Life of Christ. Rosemarie thinks she’ll still be head of her estate upon entering the convent. A nun or monk takes a vow of “poverty, chastity and obedience”—they relinquish all worldly property. Everyone in medieval times knew this. You’d also better believe that a girl like Rosemarie would be praying to the Blessed Virgin and a whole host of female saints, but as far as this book is concerned, these figures do not exist. Knights' Tales The Age of Chivalry produced legends wherein handsome knights vied for the hands of fair maidens, but there were certain acceptable ways of doing that. (Note I say “legends” not “history”, because these swashbuckling tales were not exactly typical of the real-life medieval experience). Those acceptable ways, if the Arthurian legends, Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale” and the delusions of Don Quixote are anything to go by, consisted mainly of jousting and quests. This book features a brief joust. But it’s hardly the focus. And quest? What is a quest? What we get instead is a PG-rated, vaguely medieval Bachelorette - too modern in tone and extremely shallow in content. That premise might work if it were intentionally funny, if Rosemarie were like a Jane Austen heroine, caught in a ridiculous societal game but well aware of just how ridiculous it is. Alas, she's a dope. She believes that she cares about poor people, but her actions and even her narration show otherwise. Whenever she goes into town to take care of her people, she skims over it in the narration. She never mentions a beggar or poor laborer by name; she doesn't even know the names of officials like the sheriff. Her flirtations with Collin and Bennet show her to be vapid, vain, and prone to childish pouting. Derrick, the knight who (view spoiler)[emerges as Rosemarie's love interest (hide spoiler)], is the strongest character, the only young man in the trio who's even close to believable. He finds the contest an inane waste of time, and encourages Rosemarie to pursue her philanthropy, instead of paying her empty compliments like the other two do. The only problem I had with him was that, of course, he winds up falling for silly Rosemarie despite having nothing in common with her. That and his backstory is too over-the-top to be genuinely sad. There's also an unintentionally hilarious moment where Rosemarie asks Derrick how he enjoyed the previous night's feast, where she batted her eyelashes at the other two knights and ignored him. His response is, almost verbatim, [image] (I know I used that GIF in my updates the first time I read this, but it's too classic to only use once). Collin has summery blond good looks and is usually pleasant. The book frequently describes him as witty, although it offers no evidence. He showers Rosemarie with expensive gifts, which may prove embarrassing (view spoiler)[since she chooses Derrick. (hide spoiler)] Bennet is tall, dark, classically handsome, and takes himself way too seriously. The book describes him as cultured and fond of quoting poetry, although we never get to hear the poetry (which would have been a great way to sneak some actual medieval writing into this novel). Rosemarie, Collin and Bennet are all so shallow that I felt sorry for Derrick, the only character with any sense. He's also the only knight of the three I could picture holding his own in combat; the other two are supposedly superb warriors but they act like silly courtiers who have never had to fight. Abbott Francis Michael is an anti-Catholic caricature intent upon taking over Rosemarie's lands, and forcing her into the convent although that's not her vocation. He has no unique motivation or depth. The Duke of Rivenshire is presented as wise and virtuous, so noble and foreseeing that I wonder if he's meant to be a Christ figure (although the Duke is married). Unfortunately, he isn't really wise or foreseeing, the book just thinks he is. He almost functions like a fairy godmother, finding the loophole in Rosemarie's curse (the “Ancient Vow”) like the good fairies in “Sleeping Beauty” and giving her a beautiful gown like Cinderella's godmother. We're told over and over again that he's a father to his men, but we never get to see that. Whether meant to represent Christ or only a godly man, he should be a lot more competent than he is shown being. This was one of my most frustrating reads last year. I picked it up again only because my library has the next two books in the series, and I couldn't resist roasting those, so I had to refresh my memory of this installment. This book is so historically inaccurate, shallow, and goofy, it made Melanie Dickerson's Hagenheim series look like Rosemary Sutcliff's Roman Britain novels by comparison. The male lead was attractive and almost intelligent, and the story gave me a few laughs, but overall...I suspect I'll enjoy snarking on the next book more than I'll enjoy the book itself. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
2
|
May 27, 2020
May 11, 2019
|
Jun 09, 2020
Jun 11, 2019
|
Jan 20, 2016
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0440430909
| 9780440430902
| 0440430909
| 4.17
| 21,700
| 1909
| Sep 01, 1986
|
it was amazing
|
Elnora Comstock leaves deep in the Limberlost swamp of Indiana with her mother, who hates her, and a kindly childless couple next door. The year is (a
Elnora Comstock leaves deep in the Limberlost swamp of Indiana with her mother, who hates her, and a kindly childless couple next door. The year is (approximately) 1909, and fifteen-year-old Elnora is going to high school if she has to die trying. Her mother rails abuse at her, while Wesley and Margaret Sinton have to sneak behind her mom’s back to help her. At first Elnora sticks out terribly. The town kids bully her for her threadbare, hopelessly out-of-fashion old clothes and naïve manners. Not to mention she’s too poor to even buy textbooks. But, in the first of many brilliant decisions (and a few inexplicable stupid ones), Elnora decides to earn some money by trading moth specimens with a mysterious figure known as the Bird Woman. The Limberlost is fairly crawling with different kinds of moth. As she captures the little creatures, Elnora has no idea that those moths aren’t just paying for her education—they will become the catalyst that turns her youth into her adulthood. As she perseveres at school, she is alternately abused and admired by her mother, who has been bitter and paranoid about everything since the drowning of her husband, which happened on the very day that Elnora was born. The deceased Mr. Comstock is a mysterious presence in the book, with a negative legacy that is slowly destroying a local woman, and a positive one that flourishes in his daughter. Elnora eventually makes friends among her schoolmates, and also takes pity on a starving child named Billy, who is stuck in the swamp with his raging alcoholic father and no food. Billy is eventually adopted by the Sintons, and while he starts out feral, he strives to be a little gentleman and please them. After graduating high school, Elnora discovers that she lacks the funds to pay for college. Her mom is now on her side for good, and they spend all their time hunting for swamp moths to trade for cash. On one of these expeditions they cross paths with a handsome, rich young man from the city—Philip Ammon, who loves moths as much as Elnora does. It is inevitable and right that the two young people fall for each other, but in his pampered youth he made some bad judgment calls—namely, an engagement to a narcissistic and cruel society belle—that prevent an honorable union. And that society belle, Edith Carr, is a veritable Fury from Hell when something gets in her way… If you like L.M. Montgomery’s novels, I think this book is a safe bet for you. Porter clearly had a deep love for the Limberlost region, which I had never even heard of before reading this book, and now it feels familiar to me. In this beloved landscape, lively and likable characters wander, making mistakes and learning from them, helping each other and honoring God. Elnora, like many of her fellow fin de siècle heroines, is pretty and clever and skilled and may sometimes seem implausible. But(view spoiler)[, as the last part of the book proves, she can take self-sufficiency and propriety too far, to the point that Philip becomes wild with worry and his latent illness is aggravated. Granted, she couldn’t have known that he would overreact like he did, but a wiser young woman would hopefully have known not to push him that far in the first place. (hide spoiler)] Overall, she’s wonderful. Philip is also a good kid, if maddeningly indecisive, and often oblivious to his own needs and changing feelings. Sometimes he slips over boundaries, but he always recovers, (view spoiler)[and like Edward Ferrars before him, was willing to marry an awful woman to preserve said woman’s pride. (hide spoiler)] Mrs. Comstock is frightening for the first half of the book. She never bonded with her daughter, given the trauma of giving birth on the day that her husband died, and her only affection toward Elnora for the next seventeen years only manifested as paranoid, possessive, and apparently deranged outbursts. (view spoiler)[Upon learning that her husband drowned on his way back from an extramarital dalliance, she banishes his memory and channels all her energy into helping Elnora, who forgives her for everything. (hide spoiler)] Edith Carr is also frightening, but in a completely different way. This spoiled creature, well aware of her own beauty and charisma, enjoys terrorizing and manipulating Philip, and is almost equally shameless with Hart Henderson, a mutual friend strung around her finger. Her belief in her own powers over men, particularly Philip, is well within the definition of hubris. The term narcissist gets tossed about casually these days, and applied to many fictional characters who don’t deserve it, but Edith really does fit the criteria. The climactic confrontation between Edith and Elnora recalls Lady Catherine’s ambush of Elizabeth near the end of Pride & Prejudice. My only gripe with the book is that a few supporting characters are introduced, only to vanish into the mists of the swamp without accomplishing much. Billy has two siblings who are shuffled off to unseen families when their father dies, and never seen again. There’s also a young man named Pete, a Stalker with a Crush on Elnora, who was implied to be tangled in some criminal enterprise. He never actually meets with the object of his affection, although he helps her mom collect moths on one occasion, before disappearing from the text, as if to make way for Philip. I’m not saying that there should have been yet another love triangle—Hart/Edith/Philip/Elnora was more than dramatic enough—but it was very strange that Pete should be introduced, with his dark circumstances and passion for the heroine, and wind up not being part of the plot at all. There are some characters who show up toward the end—the singer Terence “Freckles” O’More and his wife, referred to as the Angel (I’m not getting gender-flipped Phantom of the Opera vibes from this at all, ahem) who apparently appeared in Porter’s previous Limberlost book, Freckles. I want to read that one now, so I understand better why these two are so important. This is a genuinely good book that will leave you feeling like you’ve eaten a wholesome and delicious meal. Warmly recommended for everybody, but especially teen girls and young women like myself. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Dec 25, 2017
|
Jan 2018
|
Jan 19, 2016
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1582348014
| 9781582348018
| 1582348014
| 3.71
| 12,014
| Oct 31, 2006
| Oct 31, 2006
|
it was ok
|
Headstrong Ophelia is the youngest lady-in-waiting to Queen Gertrude of Denmark. Gertrude is both the pious and kindly mother that Ophelia never had,
Headstrong Ophelia is the youngest lady-in-waiting to Queen Gertrude of Denmark. Gertrude is both the pious and kindly mother that Ophelia never had, and the cool aunt who lets the girl read courtly romances, philosophy, and bawdy poems. Ophelia is also learning herbalogy from a local midwife, cheerfully pranking a mean girl at court, and nursing a giant crush on Prince Hamlet. The fun and games come to a shocking halt while the prince is abroad. The King is murdered by his brother Claudius, who quickly marries Gertrude. The court is a gloomy, uneasy place when Hamlet and his best friend Horatio return…and as supernatural visions give way to revenge plots, mistaken murders, and lunacy, Ophelia realizes that she can’t save her Prince or her court, only herself and the secret she carries inside. Content Advisory Violence: Ophelia is harassed and molested by a royal guard named Edmund. Claudius assassinates Hamlet Sr. by pouring poison into the latter’s ear while he napped in the palace orchard. Assorted stabbings, none of which are shown. A character drinks a poison to induce a coma. Someone apparently commits suicide. Two disturbed young men jump into a grave with a dead girl—the sister of one and beloved of the other—and slug it out over which of them loved her more. Sex: Hamlet and Ophelia see Claudius slobbering all over Gertrude in public and are disgusted. So disgusted are they that they promptly go off and have sex themselves. The next day they are secretly married by a village priest off the palace grounds. We see them kissing and cuddling, but no racy details are given. A kid reading this will learn nothing about sex that they didn’t already know. Language: Mild modern profanities and a few Elizabethan insults. Substance Abuse: Claudius is always hammered in this interpretation. Nightmare Fuel: (view spoiler)[Ophelia’s childbirth experience is described in a terrifying way, and apparently there was a lot of blood (she was in and out of consciousness for most of it). (hide spoiler)] Politics and Religion: Bit of a mixed message here. The nuns and pious women in this story are mostly kind and enlightened, but the men are either irreligious or Pharisees. Except Horatio, who is a sweetheart. The portrayal of the cruel priest and hypocritical bishop seemed like a commentary about the men of this time period rather than an attack on the Church. Also, Klein doesn't really seem to understand what a stigmata is, as I will explain later. Conclusions Lisa Klein reexamines Hamlet’s girlfriend in Ophelia. Unlike some similar projects— Lavinia by the late great Ursula K. Le Guin comes to mind—Klein’s YA novel diverges substantially from anything that could be inferred from the original story. To borrow a term from the realm of fanfiction, this is a “fix-it fic,” wherein a character wronged badly in the original is restored to rights. And like most well-written fanfiction, Ophelia is at its lowest when it’s merely recounting what happened in Hamlet , and much better when the heroine finally (view spoiler)[breaks free of toxic Elsinore. (hide spoiler)] Klein’s Ophelia is a bit more of a wild-child than I pictured her—when I read the play earlier this year, she struck me as a shy kid whom Hamlet had seduced and was now trying to intimidate—but this characterization is not bad. As my friend Katherine noted in her review, while this Ophelia defies social convention and has some feminist tendencies, she does not say or do anything that would not have been said or done at the time. Horatio is lovely—the one kind and decent and honest person in Elsinore. He suffered greatly, not only losing his best friend, but (view spoiler)[had to stand by and let said best friend court the girl Horatio loved (hide spoiler)] Yet he continues to help everyone who needs it and think the best of all. I have a reservation about this book, though. There’s a strange subplot involving a girl named Therese, who works at the convent but has not been allowed to take orders. Therese has visions wherein she nurses the Christ child (a not-unheard-of image in medieval mysticism) and also believes herself to have the stigmata, or the wounds on Jesus’ hands from where the nails went in. Ophelia and the others around Therese aren’t sure if her hand injuries are supernatural in origin, or merely cracks from the lye she often handles. They also have a hard time believing in her visions, despite her visions being very similar to those described by canonized saints. Twentieth-century mystic Padre Pio had the stigmata. Religious rivals accused him of wounding his own hands, while a psychologist claimed that Pio meditated so obsessively upon the death of Christ that his stigmata was psychosomatic. Pio, with typical Italian dry wit replied to the psychologist, “Right. Now you go meditate like that on a bull and see if you grow horns.” Anyway, here’s a rare photo of St. Pio with his hands exposed. It would be hard to mistake wounds like this for mere chapped hands: [image] So while I enjoyed this novel, I’m also Catholic, and the author’s lack of understanding of Catholic supernatural phenomena frustrated me. Klein portrayed the nuns as mostly a wonderful group of people, so I don’t think she intended this plotline as any sort of attack on the Church. I just don’t think she did much research on the nature of stigmatas, and I wish she had, because they are already a difficult and sometimes scary concept for those outside the Church. This would have been an easy four stars without the muddled treatment of stigmatas. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Apr 28, 2018
|
May 15, 2018
|
Jan 19, 2016
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0718026241
| 9780718026240
| 0718026241
| 3.86
| 8,933
| May 01, 2015
| May 12, 2015
|
it was ok
|
Thornbeck fiefdom, Germany, 1363— Twenty-year-old Odette grew up a poor orphan. These days she lives with her wealthy uncle, and is considered the most Thornbeck fiefdom, Germany, 1363— Twenty-year-old Odette grew up a poor orphan. These days she lives with her wealthy uncle, and is considered the most eligible single woman in Thornbeck. But the young lady vividly remembers her childhood, and her efforts to help other children in her former situation take up most of her time. Also, some of her methods are illegal. Someone has to feed those kids, and the authorities don’t seem to care about them. Jorgen is the new warden on the margrave’s lands. He’s an orphan too, whose adoptive father was killed by a poacher in the forest when Jorgen was only a lad. Since then, every time Jorgen patrols the forest, he wonders if that poacher is still out there. Recently there’s been poaching in the margrave’s forest again. Jorgen and Odette meet at the village Midsummer’s Festival and hit it off immediately, but as they grow closer, Odette dreads the day that Jorgen finds out her secret. She’s the poacher, and she only does it so the beggar-children of Thornbeck don’t starve. Meanwhile, a spoiled young noblemen tries his best to derail their courtship for selfish reasons…and the trail of sinister activity in the worst parts of town leads back to Odette’s house… Content Advisory Violence: A few people get shot with arrows—no fatalities, but the descriptions are still moderately gory. Mentions of a young girl being forced into sex slavery and brutalized (view spoiler)[(she is eventually rescued and brought to a safe home) (hide spoiler)]. Sex: Some kissing and very mild innuendo. Language: Nothing. Substance Abuse: Drinking occurs at festivals. Nightmare Fuel: Nothing. Politics & Religion: As I’ve come to expect with Dickerson, there’s some minor pokes at the Catholic culture of medieval Europe. Odette’s tutor is a passive-aggressive monk who thinks women are evil until proven otherwise, and apparently everyone in town has a secret stash of Scripture books—at least the partial Bibles are in Latin in this story. None of the town clergy take any apparent interest in the welfare of the beggar children, which is interesting, considering that most medieval charity came from nuns and monks. Conclusions The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest is a pleasant Christian historical novel that takes plot inspiration from both Robin Hood and Swan Lake. The story is predictable, but still cute, and moves along at a good clip. The atmosphere is evocative. The main flaw is the same one that all books by this author seem to share: she can’t write characters with actual flaws. They’re all kind young men and women with the purest intentions, who get bamboozled by conniving worldly people. All of them suffer from over-scrupulosity, swamped with guilt for minor sins or things that aren’t sins at all (like Margaraetha feeling guilty for talking too much in The Princess Spy). Just once it would be cool if a denizen of Hagenheim or Thornbeck was a gossip or had a bad temper or something. They could be an actual protagonist with inner struggles instead of the hapless cinnamon roll who keeps getting victimized by the people around them. (For this reason, I'm looking forward to The Piper's Pursuit, because it sounds like the male lead in that, at least, might be something like an antihero). It’s also aggravating how these characters are written, with their over-scrupulous thoughts and repetitive worries seeping into the narration. We know that Odette’s main goal in life is to help impoverished children; we know that Jorgen is haunted by the idea that the man who shot his father is still skulking in the forest; we know that Odette is terrified of Jorgen scorning her affection once he finds out who’s been poaching those deer, and she worries that he won’t care why she feels the need to poach those deer. The characters tell us these things early on, and their every action points toward these motivations. We don’t need the narrator to swoop in and remind us that “Odette hoped that Jorgen never discovered that she was the poacher” five times on every page. This is pleasant-enough light reading, especially if you like Dickerson’s other medieval books. I’ve found some of her books enjoyable and others annoying. This one erred more toward annoying, at least for me. I did like the imagery though. P.S. Masquerade balls were being held in France around the time this story takes place, but they didn’t become popular outside of France and Italy until the 17th century. I understand why Dickerson would be drawn to the image of a masque, and it might have been hard to incorporate the mistaken identity element from Swan Lake any other way. It’s just worth noting. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Feb 21, 2019
|
May 2019
|
Jan 19, 2016
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0156035154
| 9780156035156
| 0156035154
| 4.27
| 913,706
| Sep 01, 1973
| Oct 08, 2007
|
really liked it
|
Prince Humperdinck of Florin, an adept hunter but terrible human being, wants to start a war with the neighboring, equally tiny, kingdom of Guilder. T
Prince Humperdinck of Florin, an adept hunter but terrible human being, wants to start a war with the neighboring, equally tiny, kingdom of Guilder. To this end he schemes to marry a beautiful peasant lass named Buttercup, market her as Florin’s sweetheart, have her assassinated, and frame Guilder. In these machinations he is assisted by Count Rugen, a sadist obsessed with measuring pain. A trio of mercenaries—Vizzini the Why is Buttercup so important to Roberts? Is he connected to Westley, Buttercup’s farm-boy sweetheart who sailed away years ago to seek his fortune? [image] William Goldman’s novel, which satirizes old-fashioned swashbucklers and merrily bulldozes the fourth wall every other page, was published in 1975, but largely overshadowed by the 1987 film adaptation, wherein Goldman wrote the screenplay of his own novel. A central conceit of the story is that Goldman’s work is a mere abridged version of a longwinded epic by the fictitious S. Morgenstern. The layers of meta-commentary can feel a bit stifling; luckily the film dispenses with Goldman’s “scholarly” digressions, using a grandpa reading to his grandson as a framing device instead. The book is not quite as family-friendly as the movie. In one of the many forewords—this book has as many forewords as The Return of the King had endings—Goldman finds himself chatting up a bikini-clad woman one-third his age while he’s supposed to be buying his young son a birthday present (both the woman and the son are fictional). Then in the epilogue, “Buttercup’s Baby,” we see Buttercup teasing Westley into bed with her. It’s not graphic or salacious at all—quite tame by adult fiction standards, and substantially less horny than many a modern YA—but stuff like this is intrusive and weird when you remember that people show the movie to six-year-olds. [image] Finally, while I thoroughly enjoyed Goldman’s asides at first, they can seriously disrupt the story’s flow at some points and become a chore to slog through. The multiple forwards are too long, especially combined. The Hollywood secrets and Morgenstern gags are hilarious in moderation, but I think he overused them. The funniest material by far is in the story proper, almost all of which made it into the film: [image] [image] "True love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everyone knows that" ~Miracle Max (GIF unavailable) Also, Buttercup’s horse is named Horse. Goldman tells us she wasn’t very creative. The book I recommend for people who love the movie and are very patient. The movie I recommend for everyone. The jokes work beautifully on screen, and every character is perfectly cast. Watch it today! ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Feb 09, 2018
|
Feb 14, 2018
|
Jan 19, 2016
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1423118235
| 9781423118237
| 1423118235
| 4.16
| 78,321
| Oct 06, 2009
| Oct 06, 2009
|
None
|
Notes are private!
|
2
|
Jun 05, 2018
not set
|
Jun 07, 2018
Feb 2014
|
Dec 28, 2015
|
Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0545328136
| 9780545328135
| 0545328136
| 3.91
| 2,422
| 2013
| Sep 24, 2013
|
it was amazing
|
It’s been two years since
The Dark Unwinding
left off. Katharine Tulman has been managing her ancestral estate, Stranwyne Keep, avoiding the malic
It’s been two years since
The Dark Unwinding
left off. Katharine Tulman has been managing her ancestral estate, Stranwyne Keep, avoiding the malicious London-based circle of her spiteful Aunt Alice, and taking care of her “mad” Uncle Frederick, called Tully. Uncle Tully isn’t a bit mad, but Victorian language lacks a word to describe him. He has the all-mastering, simple emotions of a small child, yet a mathematical and mechanical genius that goes far beyond anyone alive in his day. (view spoiler)[In the last book, Uncle Tully had built a wondrous mechanical fish that could swim, propelling itself. He saw this thing as only a delightful toy, but others—most importantly the Anglo-French spy known in Stranwyne as Ben Aldridge—realized its potential as a weapon. It could decide the struggle between Queen Victoria and Emperor Napoléon III for control of the seas. Once he had the designs for the fish, Aldridge set off for France, attempting to kill Katharine when she discovered his plot, and throwing the child Davy off his ship to drown. Katharine blew the ship up while trying to simply shoot Aldridge, and while it was unlikely anyone had survived the blast, Lane Moreau was not convinced. Lane sailed for France almost two years ago. Katharine has heard nothing from her beau and realizes that he might be dead. But she is granted the opportunity to search for him, among many other tasks. Aunt Alice finally sends men from the nearest insane asylum to capture Uncle Tully, which leaves Katharine and her allies—family solicitor Mr. Babcock and maidservant Mary Brown—with no choice but to smuggle him to his mother’s old safe house in Paris. (hide spoiler)] Here they will stumble on family secrets and royal intrigues, and run afoul of two governments. Content Advisory: Violence: A house is violently raided; a servant deals a fatal blow to an invader’s head in self-defense. A girl finds a man creeping about in her yard after dark and clobbers him with a brick. A man is found murdered, but we do not witness the event and are never even told how he was killed. Two people get electrocuted. A special-needs man is frequently menaced by those who see him only as a tool. Sex: Lane and Katharine exchange a few chaste kisses. Henri flirts mildly with Katharine. While sneaking around the palace corridors, Katharine bumps into a disheveled Emperor and hears a woman giggling nearby. A young woman is pregnant, (view spoiler)[and Katharine, in a dark moment, thinks Lane might have had something to do with that. (hide spoiler)] Language: One or two uses of “bloody” and “damn.” Substance Abuse: Light wine-drinking at parties. Anything Else: Uncle Tully is put in constant danger, has no comprehension of what’s happening to him, and is treated as a freak by those who wish to use his genius for evil. My only gripe with this book is that the ending feels rushed, and there’s enough unexplored ideas left over that Cameron could easily write a final volume to tie the whole thing up. (view spoiler)[Also, Lane and Katharine spent the bulk of the book apart. (hide spoiler)] Overall, though, A Spark Unseen is a sleek, clean, historical thriller. Warmly recommended for teens and up. I sincerely hope that Cameron eventually returns to these characters. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
2
|
Jan 15, 2018
not set
|
Jan 17, 2018
Nov 2014
|
Dec 28, 2015
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0062001035
| 9780062001030
| 0062001035
| 3.87
| 37,206
| Mar 29, 2011
| Mar 29, 2011
|
liked it
|
Eathesbury is a small, poor kingdom, whose royal family pour their meager funds into keeping up appearances. The eleven princesses—ranging from sixtee
Eathesbury is a small, poor kingdom, whose royal family pour their meager funds into keeping up appearances. The eleven princesses—ranging from sixteen-year-old heir to the throne Azalea to two-year-old Kale—make do with drafty bedchambers and hand-me-down clothes. But thanks to their dance-obsessed mother, they know every possible way to twirl across a ballroom floor. The King is preoccupied with war, trade, and other royal business (R.B., as the girls call it) at the expense of his daughters, not even the one who will inherit his crown. Not one of the princesses, not even the little ones, call him Papa. The warm and gracious Queen, on the other hand, is always there for the sisters, and they adore her. But alas, Mother succumbs to one of those nameless book diseases, leaving behind a twelfth princess for the other girls to look after. Her last act before her death was to secure a promise from Azalea, that the Princess Royale would keep her younger sisters out of danger. The King marches off to war with a nearby kingdom before his wife is cold in her grave. He has forbidden all forms of merriment during the mourning period, but his daughters know their mother would want them to dance in her memory. They’ll get in trouble if they’re caught dancing on the palace grounds… …but the pavilion at the heart of the magical garden in the basement surely doesn’t count. All the girls want to dance and laugh again, but the older ones are also drawn to the guardian of that enchanted place—a graceful, black-haired youth, who has no name except the title Keeper. What exactly does he keep? Why does he keep it? Can the sisters trust him? The answers are decidedly unpleasant. Content Advisory Violence: A man is fatally shot and bleeds heavily. People get their hands broken; reference to a historical figure getting hers chopped off. People are dragged over floors or struck across the face. More under Nightmare Fuel. Sex: Keeper acts increasingly creepy with Azalea. On one occasion he kisses her while she’s struggling to break free of him. Language: If you’re Meg March, this book is full of bad words, including “Blast!” and “Great Scot!” If you’re anyone else, there’s nothing to worry about. Substance Abuse: Nothing. Nightmare Fuel: The High King not only murdered a number of people, he used magic to trap their souls within his palace, crushed between panes of cold mirror-glass or confined to his dancing lawn with their eyes and/or mouths sewn shut. Keeper can take on any shape he likes, and once tries to be kind of seductive with Azalea while wearing her mother’s likeness. Ew. Another time he transforms into such a good copy of Az herself that even her sisters don’t know which one is the real her. A handsome youth morphs into a decrepit elder before turning to dust with the weight of his years and evil deeds. There’s a reference to drinking blood. The abovementioned horror elements are especially jarring given the rather sugary tone of the rest of the book. Politics & Religion: This fantasy world is a lot like nineteenth-century Europe; it even appears to be Christian. That said, a piece of silver seems to be a more effective ward against dark magic than a sacramental in this universe. Conclusions I tried reading this book awhile back and it didn’t click, so I’m glad I reread it. It’s got much more going for it than I noticed the first time. Entwined is hard to put down, thanks to its detailed and charming setting, its clipped tempo, and the heartwarming scenes of sisterhood. (view spoiler)[The girls eventually letting their father back into their lives is also poignant and well-written (hide spoiler)]. Dixon, now Dixon Wallwork, steals from the best when creating the Wentworth princesses. Azalea is Meg March, dignified and pretty, with a weakness for soft-spoken brown-eyed men. Bramble is Jo, melodramatic and rowdy and given to flash fires of rage. Clover, the impossibly kind and shy one, is a lot like Beth, although she has a secret not unlike Meg’s (no spoilers). Delphinium is blonde and flouncy and whiny and likes to draw, so Amy without the tantrums. Eve comes from Pride & Prejudice, a younger and much less pompous Mary Bennet. The cloud of little sisters who follow them everywhere begging for song and dance call to mind the younger von Trapps in The Sound of Music. These are all great things to be reminded of. [image] [image] [image] The scenes of the sisters being sisters are perfect. Unfortunately, the supernatural elements don’t seem as well-planned and don’t always fit with the rest of the story. I understand that the girls wanted nothing more than to dance again, so it made sense that the first time they stumbled into the magic garden, they went straight for the pavilion. But it struck me as rather odd that they never ventured beyond it. Other retellings of the Twelve Dancing Princesses usually offer an explanation for this. In Wildwood Dancing, the girls were under the protection of the Faerie Queen, and risked being carried off by vampires if they stepped beyond the borders of her small realm. In Princess of the Midnight Ball, the sisters didn’t want to be in the underground realm at all; they just did their sentences on the dance floor and went home. But what excuse do the Wentworths have for not exploring? If their secret passage had brought them to Narnia instead of Keeper’s realm, they would probably have just danced in a ring around the Lamppost until someone happened upon them. [image] Then there’s Keeper. We can figure out from early on that there’s something off about him. If he had nothing to hide, he wouldn’t have flooded his park in a desperate effort to make the girls stay and listen to him. That said, “desperate and melodramatic” does not necessarily equal “pure evil bent on taking over the kingdom.” The archetype Keeper first appears to be is not the archetype he winds up being. A brief guide to the main types of villains one finds in the fantasy genre I. The Ancient Eeeeevil Rising Again [image] II. The Political Megalomaniac [image] III. The Corrupted Good Guy [image] [image] IV. The Diabolical Being Who Wants Power and Revenge [image] V. The Sleazebag with Bad Intentions Toward the Heroine [image] VI. The Seemingly Wholesome Person Who Had Everyone Fooled [image] VII. The Troubled Young(ish) Individual Who is Manipulated by Dark Forces, Is Probably Cursed, and Usually Becomes a Good Guy [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] Obviously a character can be more than one of these. But Keeper floats between categories to a maddening degree, at least if you’re fussy about this stuff. The lack of consistency renders Keeper a bit flimsy, like Prince Hans in Frozen, who was obviously not originally conceived as an evil character. They’re just evil because “ooh, what a twist!” even though neither is much of a twist. We know right away that Keeper must be the High King; there’s no other figure in the back-story who would need to be coy about his identity. But the tone of the “history” is propagandistic. I was sure we would learn that the tale of the High King vs. Harold I had been heavily abridged, rather like in Prince Caspian, where our main character grows up being told that his ancestors brought civilization to beasts and wild men, only to learn that they were actually fantastic racists who hunted the many peoples of Narnia almost to extinction. But Keeper’s first menacing act—raising the brook so the girls have to stay in the pavilion and introduce themselves to him—isn’t anything that the Beast or Erik the Opera Ghost wouldn’t have done. It’s a selfish use of magic to frighten, but the girls were never in any danger of drowning. It also implies that he’s lonely, and may need True Love to lift his curse. None of this turns out to be true. To make another comparison with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (I know, I know, but the stories have some similarities), let’s see how that evil magician villain is introduced. The first thing Jadis does upon meeting Edmund is almost deal him a killing blow with her wand. She barely stops herself, and her overlay of kindness is hasty and thin. Edmund, being an insecure eleven-year-old boy who hasn’t had dessert in two years because war rations, lacks the clarity of mind to see through her, but the reader knows that she is vicious. Her archetype is consistent from beginning to end. Other than Keeper, the young men in this book are pleasant but insubstantial. Fairweller can get away with it, since he’s not in it that much. So can Lord Teddie—he only has one note, but that one note is Tigger in a top hat, so you can’t stay mad at him. [image] But it is a problem with Mr. Bradford, who is the love interest for the main character and should really have more than one personality trait (in his case, being adorable). He’s a lot like John Brooke, who was fine as the suitor of the MC’s sister. But the love interest of the MC should really be livelier and more detailed. This guy is so agreeable and vague, he makes Raoul de Chagny look like Eugenides of Eddis. This book has delightful main characters and a perfect confection of a pseudo-Victorian setting. However, the horror elements seemed out-of-nowhere and the villain couldn’t make up his mind what sort of villain he was. That said, more of the book works than doesn’t. Recommended for fairytale fans. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
2
|
Nov 17, 2018
not set
|
Dec 02, 2018
Jan 2014
|
Dec 28, 2015
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0151014248
| 9780151014248
| 0151014248
| 3.85
| 15,234
| Apr 21, 2008
| Apr 21, 2008
|
it was amazing
|
The late Ursula K. Le Guin hits it out of the park, as always, with Lavinia. Our heroine is the human MacGuffin from the second half of Virgil’s Aeneid The late Ursula K. Le Guin hits it out of the park, as always, with Lavinia. Our heroine is the human MacGuffin from the second half of Virgil’s Aeneid. The beautiful young princess of Latium (one of many petty kingdoms in the mythic age of pre-Roman Italy), she was betrothed to the warlord Turnus, but an oracle told her father that her rightful husband was in fact Aeneas, the last scion of the royal house of Troy, who had just landed on their shores. These being Greco-Roman mythological figures, what followed was a horrifically bloody war. Virgil’s poem ends abruptly with an uncharacteristically violent act from Aeneas. The poet died with his work incomplete; he asked for his work to be burned, and he was not obeyed. Le Guin makes Virgil a key character in the novel, a ghostly and wise observer whom only Lavinia, a shrewd and spiritually-minded girl, can see. He tells her what will happen up to a certain point of her life, but cannot see beyond that. He also fusses that he got her hair color wrong and references Dante, the latter being a T.H. White Merlyn moment that had me howling. But Le Guin’s delivery, in Lavinia’s solemn voice, renders the flashes of humor extremely subtle. In the original Aeneid, Lavinia is given no lines and no hint of personality save that she is a good kid who does what she’s told. Le Guin infuses her with intelligence and courage, but never breaks character with what little was established in Virgil. There is a lot of woman power in this book—not girl power, which conjures images of a feisty princess on horseback defeating men in battle. There’s a number of books reimagining mythological/legendary characters—Helen, Cassandra, Polyxena, Guinevere—like this, and it is far out of character for any of them. Those roles belonged to Amazons and huntresses; queens and future queens had a different calling. Lavinia emerges from this text with palpable dignity, as a queen, a wife and widow of a king, and a mother of kings and emperors. About halfway through, the book goes past the point where the original poem ended, but the transition is seamless. Le Guin understands the character well enough that nothing of her doings after the cutoff of the first story seem unreal. To use my favorite Virgilian metaphor, the book could pass through the Horn Gate of true visions, not through the Ivory Gate of false dreams as Aeneas and the Sybil were compelled to do (I will always wonder what that means). This book is meant for adults, but could easily appeal to teens who are slogging through the Aeneid in English class, so here’s a Content Advisory Violence: A fair amount of gory, Virgilian descriptions of battle. Also lots of animal sacrifices, which are upsetting to read about but almost never graphic. Sex: There are two very brief descriptions of marital sexual activity between Aeneas and Lavinia, poetic and abstract. A kid reading this would learn absolutely nothing about sex that they didn’t already know. There’s fleeting references to sexual rumors about other characters—about a pederastic relationship that continued long past the socially acceptable age back then, and a woman in love with her nephew. A festival is described where the old women sing ditties about male and female private parts—none of the songs are in any part written down. Lavinia notes that kneeling for supplication is degrading, and the nastier warlords might think the supplicant is offering them a sexual favor. Language: Nothing. Substance Abuse: Amata and her acolytes get raging drunk for their festival on the mountain, and it causes them to act mad. Anything Else: There’s a troubling, albeit compassionate, portrayal of a gay male character who hates and mistrusts women. He marries a woman to keep up appearances, but humiliates his wife and accuses her of infidelity to hide his own. This character was a sweet little boy in the Aeneid, and this interpretation is almost unrecognizable—but necessary for the story. Rather like the darkening of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s character in Death Comes to Pemberley. Conclusion This is a beautiful companion to one of the best books I ever read for school. I came away inspired by the nobility of Le Guin’s Lavinia. Recommended for adults and mature teens who love the Great Books. You’ll be sorely missed, Ursula K. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Sep 30, 2015
|
Feb 02, 2018
|
Sep 30, 2015
|
Hardcover
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
my rating |
|
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| 3.81
|
liked it
|
Sep 04, 2019
|
Jul 29, 2019
|
|||||
|
| 3.36
|
really liked it
|
Apr 23, 2019
|
Nov 17, 2018
|
|||||
|
| 4.12
|
really liked it
|
Aug 25, 2018
|
Jul 29, 2018
|
|||||
|
| 4.08
|
really liked it
|
Aug 13, 2018
|
Jul 20, 2018
|
|||||
|
| 4.20
|
liked it
|
Aug 06, 2018
|
Jun 20, 2018
|
|||||
|
| 4.02
|
it was ok
|
Jul 20, 2018
|
Jun 13, 2018
|
|||||
|
| 3.95
|
it was ok
|
May 03, 2018
|
Jan 19, 2018
|
|||||
|
| 3.94
|
it was amazing
|
May 24, 2018
|
Dec 20, 2017
|
|||||
|
| 4.18
|
really liked it
|
Jan 24, 2018
|
Dec 19, 2017
|
|||||
|
| 3.74
|
it was amazing
|
Feb 15, 2018
|
Mar 15, 2017
|
|||||
|
| 4.03
|
really liked it
|
Jan 29, 2018
|
Feb 16, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 3.87
|
it was ok
|
Jun 09, 2020
Jun 11, 2019
|
Jan 20, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.17
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 2018
|
Jan 19, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 3.71
|
it was ok
|
May 15, 2018
|
Jan 19, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 3.86
|
it was ok
|
May 2019
|
Jan 19, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.27
|
really liked it
|
Feb 14, 2018
|
Jan 19, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.16
|
Jun 07, 2018
Feb 2014
|
Dec 28, 2015
|
||||||
|
| 3.91
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 17, 2018
Nov 2014
|
Dec 28, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 3.87
|
liked it
|
Dec 02, 2018
Jan 2014
|
Dec 28, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 3.85
|
it was amazing
|
Feb 02, 2018
|
Sep 30, 2015
|
Loading...
