The first few pages of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary made me nervous because I wasn’t feeling the instant love. I kept plodding along because EVERYONE I know really liked it. By the time I was 75 pages in, I was hooked and I must find out what happens to Maggie Hope next! (I sure wish Aunt Edith wasn’t stuck in the USA, because I’d like more of her. I’m not so taken with Edmund, but maybe he will grow on me?)
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I kind of loved Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan. I loved that it’s the first book about Tarzan written by a woman and authorized by the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate.
I’m not a huge Tarzan fan but this one – work of art.
Look at this quote:
““My Dad, John Coleman Burroughs, and my Grandad, Edgar Rice Burroughs, would often discuss Tarzan’s relation to Jane. `Now there is an idea for a good book….one that really brings Jane into focus,’ Grandad would say. Robin Maxwell’s book does this brilliantly. Not only do Tarzan and Jane transform into a living, breathing couple who bring the Tarzan saga to new life, but the thrills and adventure leap off the page in the grand tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs himself.” —John R. Burroughs, Grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs”
That should be enough for you to decide to read this one.
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TW said An Uncommon Education was good, so I read it. And it was. I particularly liked the role Rose Kennedy played in the story – and I ended up liking the Shakespeare Society more than I thought I was going to. The middle of the book, that first year of Wellesley, it was a little slow. Thankfully it picked up nicely after the fall in the lake and besides the fact that I saw the end coming a mile away (the end for pretty much all of the characters), I liked the book overall.
I didn’t love it. But I definitely liked it.
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How come all of the books from the Cybils shortlist that I wanted to read on audio are just now coming available, all at once? Gah. We’re almost ODing on audio books… and poor TW, one of the books is one she had already read. Oops. She was a good sport and listened to The Girl of Fire and Thorns anyway and only gave away one spoiler. She also provided some info that was not really accurate, so a spoiler that could have been a spoiler wasn’t a spoiler after all. Heh.
I liked the book but it did get a little frustrating listening to Elisa go on and on about her looks, how fat she was, how beautiful and confident and capable everyone else was, blah blah blah. It took her an awful long time to grow up and beyond her weight. And really, I’m not sure she ever completely managed it. So that was depressing. Hopefully, if there’s a second book, the author can do away with all of that and just let Elisa enjoy her food and let us enjoy the story.
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I started Misfit on Saturday and finished it on Sunday. Yay for me for finally finishing a book (I started two others last week and tossed them in the library bag to take back – I just could not read either of them. That’s a lot of book quitting for me!) It was an easy book to read, enjoy and finish – and then wonder how long it will take for a sequel. Surely it’s going to be a series, there are Three more Dukes of Hell to deal with…
I loved Jael. I really loved everything about her. A good strong female heroine who didn’t need to spend time worrying over what she looked like or how much she weighed or how popular she was. Breath of fresh air. Really.
(PS. The Cover of the book on Amazon is a lot better than the cover of my library copy.)
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Oops. I read Ten Girls to Watch ages ago and forgot to blog it – crazy since I liked the book so much. What’s not to like except that it reminds me that I don’t have nearly enough time to reach out to awesome women and hear their stories and talk about what they’ve learned about life. I should find time to do that more often.
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The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. was good. It could have been excellent had the editor (errr author) had a better editor. When beautiful writing bogs down the narrative, you’re in trouble. When your scattering of French phrases becomes a distraction, you’re in trouble.
Other than that – well done.
France in the mid to late 1800s wasn’t a cake walk for women, in case you didn’t know that. #patriarchy. 😉
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I am a fan of The Scarlet Letter and tend to be a little hard on books that attempt to recreate that story – but When She Woke was EXCELLENT. Abortion is murder and convicts of all kinds have their skin color changed (color based on level of crime) and sent back into the community. As you can imagine, “Reds” have a pretty tough time since those are the ones who’ve been convicted of murder. Feminists run an underground railroad helping women who’ve been convicted for having abortions.
I really liked Hannah, and while I didn’t love the choice she made there at the end – it was the one that made the most sense for her and it made for a solid ending.
I read The Printmaker’s Daughter because TW told me it was good – interesting. And it was, but it started so slowly that I thought maybe this was another of those weird TW recommendations – the kind that I never quite understand. But no, it was good. Very interesting.
Oi was a real person. Her father, Hokusai, was also a real person – maybe you’ve heard of him? There really is some confusion as to which works were really his – and which were done by someone else – maybe his daughter, Oi? That’s what The Printmaker’s Daughter is about. A fictional tale of what may have been the lives of both Edo painters in the 1800s.
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TW and I argued over who put this one in the library bag. I’m sure I did – she’s sure she did, even though she did not bother to read it and was going to return it to the library without reading it (or without giving me a chance to read it. I rescued it from the return bin and I’m darn glad I did. The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt was the perfect late night read last night, after finishing John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars.
The scrapbook images were fun. The scrapbook text was a lot like a diary, which made it an actual book to read. I liked it. I even liked the happily ever after ending for the Vassar feminist of the 40s.
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A couple of months ago, I was flipping through Michelle’s Bitch magazine and you won’t be surprised to hear that there were several book reviews that caught my eye. The book I had to reserve right then was The Blue Tattoo. The cover, with a picture of Olive Oatman is fabulous. And, since captivity stories have never been my thing, I didn’t know anything about Olive – the Oatman massacre only barely registered as being one of those covered wagons traveling west things gone very, very wrong.
I’m glad I read this. It was super interesting – I just Olive had told us more and had been able to tell us more of her story, without being influenced by men (and society?) Fascinating. I cannot imagine what that would have been like – not just the massacre or even living with the Mohave for five years, but the re-entry. That… that might have been worse than all of it put together.
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