Category: Fantasy/Sci-Fi

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs

Posted on by Dana

[amazon_image id=”1594744769″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children[/amazon_image]Ransom Riggs’s novel [amazon_link id=”1594744769″ target=”_blank” ]Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children[/amazon_link] is part bildungsroman, part gothic fairy tale. Its hero, Jacob Portman, is a teenager living in Florida. He is close to his grandfather, Abe Portman, the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. Abe tells crazy stories about an orphanage in Wales where he grew up, and he shows Jacob the most fantastic photos of the children who lived there—a girl who could fly, a boy who had bees living inside him, and an invisible boy. As Jacob grows up, he stops believing his grandfather’s fantastic stories until he witnesses a terrible attack on his grandfather that makes him question everything. Jacob’s family believes he is unable to cope with the stress of losing his grandfather, and Jacob begins therapy with Dr. Golan. Finally, Jacob decides he must travel to Wales and see the orphanage where his grandfather grew up in order to come to terms with his grandfather’s death. When he arrives, he discovers his grandfather’s wild stories just might be true.

This book was a delight from start to finish. It has moments of laugh-out-loud humor and hair-raising terror. I really liked the way Riggs managed to describe the reason for everything from sideshow “freaks” to cannibalistic serial killers to the Tunguska Event. After reading this book, you’ll look at mysteries in a new way. Most reviewers who read this book remark on the way Riggs manages to seamlessly weave bizarre photographs into his narrative, but it’s true. I would not read this one the Kindle. You will not enjoy the full effect of the photographs in that way. Jacob is a likeable hero; in fact, I liked all of the characters in this book. I also enjoyed the time-travel aspect. A word of warning: the book is ripe for a sequel, and if you pick it up, who knows how long you’ll have to wait until the next installment (and I hope there will be one!). This novel is one of the most unusual, fun, and absorbing novels I read this year. Perfect for the R.I.P. Challenge!

Rating: ★★★★★

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Pottermore

Sunday Salon: An Early Review of Pottermore

Posted on by Dana

Pottermore

Pottermore is J.K. Rowling’s new website. It officially opens in October, but in July, a one-week trivia competition was held that enabled the first million users who were able to answer the questions correctly to obtain entry as beta testers. Welcome letters were rolled out slowly to control the numbers of new members added and enable the site managers to keep up better with beta tester suggestions. Members of my immediate family—husband Steve, daughters Sarah and Maggie, and me—received their Pottermore welcome letters this week. We weren’t sure if Dylan would want to worry with it or not, so he doesn’t have a membership yet. After playing with the site for a while, here are my spoiler-free impressions.

The interface is charming, but as you might imagine, very dependent on flash. It works better in my Safari browser than my Firefox browser. Steve reports it clunky to use in Google Chrome, but I haven’t tried it in that browser. If you are finding the site hard to use, I would suggest trying a different browser. Of course, some of those issues should be worked out by October.

Once you are inside the story, you follow the plot of [amazon_link id=”1855493942″ target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone[/amazon_link] (or [amazon_link id=”054506967X” target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone[/amazon_link] for those Muggles who change to American English in the settings, I guess). You learn more about how Vernon and Petunia met and courted, and you learn more about Lily and Petunia’s relationship. My other advice is to mouse over and try to click on everything. You just never know what it will do.

Once Hagrid comes to give you your letter, you get to go to Diagon Alley, and it’s a real treat. Not all of the shops are unlocked. I imagine you access them as you reach the book where they are first mentioned. By far, the coolest part of the trip is buying your wand. You answer a series of questions, and then a wand chooses you. Mine is 10¾-inches, sycamore, phoenix-feather core, hard. I am a true Harry Potter geek because honestly, getting my wand made me a little teary! Once you have your wand, you have access to all kinds of new content on wand cores and woods as well as Mr. Ollivander. All of it easily some of the most fascinating information you can learn during the first book phase of Pottermore. All I will say about it is that I think the descriptions of my wand wood and core are an accurate reflection of my personality (and so are Steve’s, Maggie’s, and Sarah’s). It’s also fun to look up what it says about the wand woods and cores for other people in the series whose wand construction you know about (such as Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Draco, Voldemort, Bellatrix, etc.). Sarah, for instance, has the exact same wand wood and core as Cedric Diggory. In many ways, I think she is like him: humble, unassuming, a really nice person and yet a star in Hufflepuff house.

After you get your wand, the next big deal is being sorted into your house. Let’s just say it’s more interesting if you want to learn more information NOT to be sorted into Gryffindor. During the Sorting Ceremony, you answer a series of questions, and I will not share any of them with you. Rowling has said that no two people necessarily get the same set, but she feels supremely confident in the results. I have to say I think the four of us who took it were put in the houses where we should be. I am in Ravenclaw. Sarah and Maggie are in Hufflepuff. Maggie was a little surprised about that, but I’m not. She thinks she wanted Ravenclaw, but she’s not crazy about books and school to the extent I think Ravenclaws might be. Both Sarah and Maggie are incredibly smart, but the hallmark of their personality is the more Hufflepuff traits of sweetness and kindness they share. Steve is in Slytherin, which is no surprise as I have never seen a Sorting Hat quiz place him anywhere else. He is already strutting around like he owns the place. Typical. You learn some interesting information about Neville and Hermione’s sortings, and let’s just say if you’re a Neville fan, it will make you tear up. You also learn more about Flitwick and McGonagall’s sortings.

Once you are sorted, you are welcomed to your house common room by your prefect, who tells you the history of your house (unless you are in Gryffindor, in which case you are really just referred to the books). You learn the names of the prefect in the your house (or at least one of them), which is something you never learn in the books until the second book, and you learn about which famous witches and wizards were in your house. You also learn how each house sees itself. In the books, we get Gryffindor’s rather limited view of each house. You also learn how your house tends to feel about members of the other houses. It’s all very interesting.

As you progress through the site, you learn more about certain characters and objects. McGonagall’s backstory is revealed, and it’s perhaps one of the single most interesting things about Pottermore so far. You learn how to brew potions, but right now that feature is extremely buggy. I am hoping they work out some of the kinks soon. If it tests my patience, then I can’t imagine a child would stick with it! Some issues I’ve noticed is that it often acts as though you haven’t begun the process of brewing a potion, but it still ties up your cauldron, so you have to do the first steps over and over again until it recognizes that a potion has been brewed, all the while still using up the stores of your ingredients. I hope they will make the bottles easier to manage and that they will make heating a little easier. Points should be awarded differently depending on the difficulty of the potion. The easiest potion earns you the same amount as the harder ones, so I have taken to brewing the easier one, which is very Slytherin of me, but can you blame me? I am not looking forward to having to brew Polyjuice Potion in [amazon_link id=”0439064872″ target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets[/amazon_link] unless they work out the kinks!

As of right now, the houses seem fairly evenly divided in terms of numbers. Ravenclaw has nearly 1,000 members more than the next closest house, but a difference of less than 2,000 members divides the house with the most members and the house with the fewest out of nearly 100,000 members (as of this writing). I think that surprised me, but I’m not sure why. They always seemed evenly divided in the books, too. I do think the house placements are quite thoughtful and accurate, at least the members of my family’s placements were, so I can’t imagine it’s randomly sorting people.

Overall, I think it’s a brilliant site, and it promises to have something for everyone: games if that’s what you’re after, and new, exclusive information for those fans who have been looking for that encyclopedia. Waiting for new books to be added to Pottermore promises to replicate the wait for the books in print with the added bonus that new content can be added all the time. At any rate, it should keep Harry Potter fans busy.

The Sunday Salon

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Adam & Eve, Sena Jeter Naslund

Posted on by Dana

[amazon_image id=”0061579289″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]Adam & Eve: A Novel (P.S.)[/amazon_image]Sena Jeter Naslund’s novel [amazon_link id=”0061579289″ target=”_blank” ]Adam & Eve[/amazon_link] takes place in the near future, from 2017-2021. Protagonist Lucy Bergmann, recently widowed, finds herself in possession of information that will rock the foundations of the three Abrahamic religions: 1) we are not alone in the universe; and 2) Genesis may not have happened the way it’s recorded. A secret organization called Perpetuity is determined to prevent this information from being released; meanwhile, Lucy herself goes missing in a modern-day Eden when her plane crash lands, and where Lucy meets a naked man who calls himself Adam. Adam is a former soldier and may be mentally disturbed.

Where to start. I didn’t like this book, especially the last third. I never empathized with any of the characters. The story starts with the death of Lucy’s husband, which reminded me of nothing so much as Wile E. Coyote’s misadventures in Looney Tunes. If you read the book, you will see why. Lucy seemed to be the most incurious person I could imagine. If my husband left behind a top secret flash drive with all his research and dropped the bombshell that he had discovered extraterrestrial life, then died, I would look at every single file on the flash drive to see what there was. But not Lucy. She just wears it around her neck like some kind of talisman. In fact, I can’t recall she ever used a computer at all with the exception of when other people used one around her to show her something. And even then! Even then! She showed no further curiosity, even when this other bombshell is possibly dropped (because Lucy is not curious enough to verify whether it is true or not), she does not look at the flash drive again. Lucy is the most developed character, and that is saying something when she comes across as flat on the page.

The last third of the book was difficult to follow. I am a fairly close reader, but I found myself confused and wondering if I had missed something. The threat of Perpetuity never seemed all that real, and I couldn’t bring myself to be afraid that a group like that would really be all that concerned about Lucy’s news, even if it did exist. The rewritten Genesis, when the reader finally gets to read it, is just kind of boring, and the reader never really gets a good look at Lucy’s flash drive because, as I said, she is not curious. She drove me nuts with how incurious she was. It was ridiculously easy for other characters to hide things from her or to trick her.

What makes me sad about this book is that Sena Jeter Naslund’s novel [amazon_link id=”B000FC10KC” target=”_blank” ]Ahab’s Wife[/amazon_link] is absolutely brilliant. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. I fear that readers who read this book might never move on to discover Ahab’s Wife because they are put off by this book, which tries to be an allegory but winds up just being kind of a confusing mess. This book might do better if it were marketed as science fiction instead of literary fiction, but even so, I’m afraid it didn’t hold together for me. If you have not read any Naslund, please do not let this review dissuade you from trying her because she is brilliant! Just not in this case. Read my review of Ahab’s Wife and give it a try, but skip this one. To be fair, all of the other tour members seemed to like the book better than I did, so your mileage may vary, but do read the reviews on Goodreads and go into this one with your eyes open.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for giving me the opportunity to participate in my first book tour. Full disclosure: The publisher provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

You can visit other stops in the tour for Adam & Eve.

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The Dream of Perpetual Motion, Dexter Palmer

Posted on by Dana

[amazon_image id=”B003A7I2PU” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]The Dream of Perpetual Motion[/amazon_image]Dexter Palmer’s novel [amazon_link id=”B003A7I2PU” target=”_blank” ]The Dream of Perpetual Motion[/amazon_link] is a steampunk reimagining (of sorts) of William Shakespeare’s play [amazon_link id=”0743482832″ target=”_blank” ]The Tempest[/amazon_link]. The protagonist, Harold Winslow, is a greeting card writer from Xeroville. He writes his memoir while trapped aboard a zeppelin—the good ship Chrysalis—with only mechanical servants and the disembodied voice of Miranda Taligent to keep him company. His life becomes inextricably linked with that of Miranda and her father Prospero Taligent’s at the age of ten, when he spends all of his money at the Nickel Empire carnival to obtain a whistle that will secure him an invitation to Miranda’s tenth birthday party. At the birthday party, Prospero promises each of the 100 boys and girls their heart’s desire. Harold becomes Miranda’s playmate until Prospero catches them kissing and banishes Harold from Miranda’s fantastic playroom.

Almost 3/4 through the book, Harold says,

Perhaps you know the kind of man I am, dear imaginary reader. I have never felt as if I have known anyone well. I have never had that sense of instinctive empathy that I am told comes to lovers, or brothers and sisters, or parents and children. I have never been able to finish a sentence that someone else starts. I have never been able to give a gift to someone that they have liked, one that surprises them even as they secretly expected it.

Whenever I looked into faces and tried to discern the thoughts that lay behind them I had to make best guesses, and more often than not it seemed my guesses were wrong. (location 5167 on Kindle)

I think that is the crux of what I didn’t like about the book. The characters were not terribly likeable. They were entertaining, especially Prospero and his servants Gideon and Martin, but no one else brought out my empathy as a reader (excepting Harold as a boy, but he sheds that quickly in the novel). I have no quibbles with Palmer’s writing, which is funny and tragic and at times had me highlighting choice phrases, but the most important thing to me about any book, almost without exception, is the characters. If I do not like any of the characters, it’s hard for me to like the book. The plot of the novel is weird, but I could have let that go if I had been able to empathize with Harold.

Another criticism I have for the book is this sort of underlying misogyny that I see sometimes in science fiction and fantasy. Palmer’s women characters are, without exception, unpleasant and untrustworthy. Shakespeare’s Prospero is concerned with Miranda’s virginity, which is a theme that Palmer takes up in this novel. Prospero seeks to prevent his daughter from becoming sexually active, but when she does, he sees her as ruined. Harold never explicitly says so, but he gives the impression that he agrees with Prospero on that account—sex ruins women, and the proof is in his description of every female character in the novel.

The book improves slightly toward the end as the action picks up the pace, but over all, I can’t say I liked it. The narrative was complex and difficult to follow at times, and the characters did not redeem the story.

Rating: ★★½☆☆

 

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Book Trailer: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Posted on by Dana

Via Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings.

Like Carl, I haven’t paid much attention to book trailers. Well, to be more precise, Carl says that he “poo-poo[ed] the concept.” I didn’t poo-poo the concept, but I often forget about their existence altogether, and some of them are pretty good vehicles for generating interest in a book. Like the one above. I know after reading Carl’s glowing review of the book and viewing that trailer, I decided to read it.

Social media is great for sharing reading. I decided to read this book soon based on a blog post and YouTube video. I have my Goodreads account publish books I add to my to-read pile on my Facebook profile. My mother-in-law bought Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children after seeing my post on Facebook that I intended to read it.

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One of Our Thursdays is Missing, Jasper Fforde

Posted on by Dana

[amazon_image id=”0670022527″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]One of Our Thursdays Is Missing: A Novel[/amazon_image]The sixth book in Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series, [amazon_link id=”0670022527″ target=”_blank” ]One of Our Thursdays Is Missing[/amazon_link] is set amid turbulence in the BookWorld. An all-out genre war is threatening to break out between Racy Novel and Women’s Fiction. And Jurisfiction/Spec Ops agent Thursday Next is missing. It’s up to her written counterpart to get to the bottom of Thursday’s disappearance. Meanwhile, she is asked to substitute for the real Thursday at peace talks between Racy Novel and Women’s Fiction. She begins to wonder if she might be the real Thursday Next, which would make the plot a whole lot more complicated.

After a fairly slow start, the novel picks up, but it doesn’t quite measure up to the other books in the series. The written Thursday just isn’t as much fun as the real Thursday, and the puns and jokes that usually have me laughing out loud as I read Jasper Fforde were in much shorter supply. It is definitely my least favorite of the series so far, and I hope that any future Thursday Next books will not continue down this road. If you haven’t read the series, I don’t recommend starting with this book, as I think it will put you off Fforde, and his other books are really good. He’s one of my favorite writers, but this book is a disappointment in comparison with the others. If you have read the series, then you will probably want to read this one, too, so prepare yourself. I seem to be in the minority: most of the reviews I have read are positive. You might find it more to your liking than I did. And I would not be honest if I didn’t say that there are some genuinely funny, laugh-out-loud moments. Once the book picked up steam, I finished it in the space of about five hours or so, but I’ve never had to wait so long for Fforde to hook me before.

P.S. If you’re like me and you read this on your Kindle, the map of Fiction Island is impossible to read. Luckily, Fforde has the map available on his website.

Rating: ★★★½☆

Other books in the series:

  • [amazon_link id=”B000OCXHC2″ target=”_blank” ]The Eyre Affair[/amazon_link] (review)
  • [amazon_link id=”B004WB19EY” target=”_blank” ]Lost in a Good Book[/amazon_link] (review)
  • [amazon_link id=”0143034359″ target=”_blank” ]The Well of Lost Plots[/amazon_link] (review)
  • [amazon_link id=”014303541X” target=”_blank” ]Something Rotten[/amazon_link] (review)
  • [amazon_link id=”B001IDZJIQ” target=”_blank” ]Thursday Next: First Among Sequels[/amazon_link] (review)

 

 

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November Reading Update

American Gods, Neil Gaiman

Posted on by Dana

American Gods: A NovelAs a result of your votes when I was struggling to decide what to read next, I picked up Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Neil Gaiman himself has said that this book tends to be a somewhat polarizing book: people tend to either love it or hate it. The novel is the story of Shadow, who is in prison for an indeterminate crime involving robbery of some sort. He is released a few days early when his wife dies in a car accident. Having nowhere to really go and nothing to do, he accepts the offer of a mysterious man named Wednesday to work for him—to protect him, transport him from place to place, run errands, hurt people who need to be hurt (only in an emergency), and in the unlikely event of his death, hold his vigil (37). Gradually, Shadow learns that Wednesday is actually Odin the All-Father, brought to America by immigrants who believed in him and sacrificed to him during the Viking Age. Wednesday has really recruited Shadow to help him face a coming storm—the new gods of television, the Internet, media, and other modern conveniences are usurping the old gods, and what’s more, the new gods want the old ones dead. Before he knows it, Shadow is on the ultimate road trip across America, helping Wednesday gather forces from among the old gods to fight the new gods.

This book was cleverly researched and interesting from a mythological standpoint. I kept wondering what Joseph Campbell would have made of it. In the novel, the reader meets gods and creatures as diverse as leprechauns, Anansi, Thoth, Anubis, Mad Sweeney, and Easter. The book certainly had me researching various mythological references so I could understand what was happening in the story. For sheer chutzpah with storytelling, I have to give Neil Gaiman props. What he did with this novel is not something very many writers could do. All that said, I didn’t completely like it. I liked parts of it. Other parts seemed to go down a path I couldn’t follow, and some threads introduced in the novel were dropped later. In some ways, it felt to me like Gaiman tried to do too much with this novel. On the other hand, some threads were brilliantly woven throughout the book. The concept is pure genius, and I don’t really even have problems with most of the execution. Ultimately, it just didn’t have some indefinable something that makes me enjoy a book. I give it four stars because I can recognize its brilliance, and I certainly don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that I hated it. I didn’t. It just didn’t do “it” for me, even though I found it interesting, and despite its size, a quicker read than I anticipated. Four stars then is a compromise between the three stars I’d give it based on my personal reaction to it and the five stars I’d give it for what I’d recognize as its epic greatness. My own reaction probably has something to do with the fact that I’m not a huge reader of fantasy or science fiction. I have certainly liked other books by Neil Gaiman: Stardust, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. I would certainly try other books by Gaiman in the future.

Rating: ★★★★☆

I read this book for three reading challenges: the Once Upon a Time Challenge, the Take a Chance Challenge, and the Gothic Reading Challenge. Gaiman’s books are great for Carl’s Once Upon a Time Challenge, which asks readers to try fantasy, fairy tales, myths, and similar types of stories. The first person who ever recommended American Gods to me was a Barnes and Noble employee who described it as Gaiman’s masterpiece. While it wasn’t quite on the employee recommendations shelf, I think a personal recommendation counts for the Staff Member’s Choice part of the Take a Chance Challenge. I hesitated about including it in the Gothic Reading Challenge, but the more I thought about it, the more I concluded it had some definite gothic elements (as in Poe or Lovecraft rather than Brontë). It’s more strictly supernatural than the sort of haunted gothic of books like Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, or Rebecca.

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A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness

Posted on by Dana

A Discovery of Witches: A NovelDeborah Harkness’s debut novel A Discovery of Witches combines several elements I like—a great gothic house (and a castle), supernatural creatures (especially witches; I love witches), and academia. Diana Bishop, a rather reluctant witch and descendant of Bridget Bishop—the first “witch” executed in the Salem Witch Trials, is a professor researching the history of alchemy in Oxford’s Bodleian Library when she is able to call forth a manuscript called Ashmole 782, believed lost for over 150 years. Diana suddenly attracts the attention of several other creatures—witches, daemons, and a vampire named Matthew Clairmont. Soon the two make even more startling discoveries—hidden inside Diana’s DNA are predispositions for just about every magical power witches possess. Together they must discover what Ashmole 782’s secrets are; why her parents were murdered when she was a child; and why daemons, witches, and vampires want to prevent them from discovering anything (and from being together).

A review on Amazon describes this as a combination of The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter, and a romance, which is just about right, except I’d throw Twilight into the mix. It’s certainly better written than The Da Vinci Code and perhaps Twilight, but not Harry Potter. It must be hard to write about vampires right about now. For one thing, we want the strange Byronic dangerousness of the vampire, but we don’t like the whole murdering people to eat deal. We have, if you’ll pardon the pun, taken the fangs out of our vampires. Edward Cullen is a great example of this phenomenon, and Matthew Clairmont is not terribly different. Despite the author’s attempts to tell us otherwise, he never comes across the page as very dangerous. Nor do any of his “family.” The vampires that do seem frightening are all bad guys. Despite lacking some teeth, they are fairly charming. I particularly liked Marcus. For astute readers, there’s a reference to another famous vampire in chapter 13 (I think—it’s hard to keep track when you’re listening) that vampire fans will enjoy. Harkness also dispenses with some of the vampire myths—her vampires can go out in the sun without incinerating (or sparkling).

I actually liked the witches much better, especially Diana’s aunts Sarah and Em. Sarah has a sort of hardened no-nonsense way of speaking, and Em is just sweet. I absolutely love their house. I won’t spoil it for those of you who want to read it. The daemons confuse me. I can’t tell what they are that makes them different from humans except for exceptional creativity and intelligence. They don’t seem to have any supernatural powers like vampires or witches. Harkness’s witches, I understand, but I would have liked to have understood her vampires better.

I think I enjoyed this book on audio perhaps more than I might have in print because Jennifer Ikeda was such a great reader. She can do a variety of accents easily—French, Australian, and Scottish. She made each character sound different and instantly recognizable. I did find myself wishing I were reading the hardcover in some parts so I could easily flip around and check things.

However, I admit I don’t care a lot for the main characters, Diana and Matthew. Are they just grown up versions of Bella and Edward? Well, kind of. Diana is Bella with a little bit more self-esteem and attitude, maybe. The descriptions of the places, the food, and the other characters made me keep listening, and I enjoyed it enough to read the sequel, which I might enjoy more because of where it will be set (a bit spoilery, so I won’t give it away). Diana and Matthew are a strange couple. They seem a little forced together as though they were set up by a good friend and are trying to make a go of it without really feeling any sparks.

It’s a worthy debut, and I think it will likely be fairly popular. Despite my feelings about the main characters, I did enjoy the book and look forward to the next one.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Diana’s aunts Sarah and Em and Matthew’s best friend Hamish qualify this book for the GLBT Challenge. The supernatural elements and ancient houses make for a great Gothic Reading Challenge read. I need to read 17 more books for the Gothic Reading Challenge.

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The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson

Posted on by Dana

The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Classics)Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, widely regarded as one of the finest scary stories ever written, is the story of Dr. John Montague, who brings together guests Theodora and Eleanor along with the home’s future owner Luke in the hopes that they can help him in his quest to find scientific evidence of the supernatural. Theodora and Eleanor are invited because they have experienced the paranormal before; of the many guests Dr. Montague invites, they alone accept. The guests quickly begin experiencing terrifying events, and Eleanor seems to be an especial target of the house. But is she becoming possessed by the house, or is she the cause of all the supernatural events herself?

I found this book a little difficult to get through because I didn’t really care for the characters. I think because Eleanor clearly has some psychological problems, and the third-person limited narration seemed to focus on her point of view, it could be difficult to tell what was really going on, and what Eleanor imagined. For instance, she has quite a few arguments with Theodora, and I’m still unsure all of them weren’t in her mind. She isn’t a very likable character—a sort of child. On the other hand, the writing is superb in some places, and Jackson has an excellent aptitude for evoking mood and describing setting. She is wonderful at characterization. Mrs. Montague and Arthur were hilarious. Even Eleanor is well-drawn in her way, but I’m wondering about Jackson’s attraction for grown women with child-like minds—We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which I never finished, has one, too. In the end of the book, it’s unclear exactly what happened, and the reader is left to interpret events. I will give this book a higher mark than I ordinarily give a book I kind of had to slog through simply because the writing was brilliant. I just really need a reason to care about the characters if I am going to enjoy a book, and I didn’t find one in this book.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

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Reading Update: October 24, 2010

Posted on by Dana

flareAll the maple trees around here are beautiful shades of red and orange. Fall is my favorite season.

I think I am pretty much done with the R.I.P. Challenge. I gave up on Wuthering Bites, and I don’t see how I’ll finish Jamaica Inn when I haven’t even started it. However, I did read four books, which is two more than I thought I could, so I still met the challenge of Peril the First—for the first time ever!

I am still reading How the Irish Saved Civilization. If I have one complaint, it’s that I like books divided up into more chapters. I feel a sense of accomplishment when I finish a chapter, and the chapters in this book (at least some of them) are looooonng, which makes me feel less like I’m getting anywhere.

I am also going to begin Anne Fortier’s novel Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is fun to teach, and this will be the first year I have taught high school that I haven’t taught the play because it’s the first year I haven’t taught ninth grade. I love the play, but I needed a break. Instead, I will be starting Macbeth pretty soon. That one is great fun to teach.

I am looking for some good steampunk book suggestions that I can read for the Steampunk Challenge. I already plan to read The Dream of Perpetual Motion, and a friend in the know recommended Leviathan. If you have read any good ones, please share.

What are you reading?

photo credit: Aunt Owwee

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