Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

of love and other demons
gabriel garcia marquez
c. 1994
147 pages
original language: spanish
completed 2/17/2011

read for: i want more challenge, what's in a name challenge, historical fiction challenge

*may contain spoilers*

An ash-gray dog with a white blaze on its forehead burst onto the rough terrain of the market on the first Sunday of December, knocked down tables of fried food, overturned Indians' stalls and lottery kiosks, and bit four people who happened t cross its path.

Don Ygnacio de Alfaro y Dueñas is a marquis in Spanish ruled South America (what is now Colombia), fading into obscurity with a wife who has been drugged into a state of near constant delirium. The daughter neither of them wanted has been pushed out of the house to be raised in the slave quarters, growing up speaking the Yoruban language of the slaves better than her own family's Spanish. It is only after she is bit by a rabid dog that Sierva Maria really comes to the attention of her father. Though she shows no signs of having contracted rabies herself, her bizarre behavior and mannerisms lead her father to conclude she is possessed by demons. Sierva Maria is sent to a convent to by exorcised. There, she develops a close relationship with Father Cayetano Delaura, the priest sent to oversee her ordeal, who may come to be possessed by an even more powerful demon: love.

Gariel Garcia Marquez is a beautiful writer. Beautiful. The emotional aspect of the detail is amazing. I always feel (I say always, yet this is only the second work of his I've read) that he is able to incorporate so much mundane life into his prose that in less capable hands would seem both irrelevant and kinda gross (in both this and Love in the Time of Cholera there is a passage or two that goes into some detail regarding specific characters' bodily functions). Instead, Marquez is able to make passages like those seem like such natural inclusions and ones that are vital to the integrity of the story. I don't often notice an author's prose style too much unless it bothers me, but Marquez stands out.

The novel (novella really) is very short, so there's not too much room for character development, but for those characters who needed it (Sierva Maria, Father Delaura, the Marquis) it was there in spades. Sierva Maria was quite the enigma. It's never really explained what her demon possession really is. For my part, I think her possession was nothing more than a cultural clash. She had been raised in the slave quarters, completely neglected by her family, so she was raised with different values, cultural norms, beliefs, and language. While differences like these would be expected from the African slaves, these perceived peculiarities were incomprehensible in their own daughter. Plus, she was basically tortured with "cures" for rabies, and that will really mess a person up.

I enjoy books that look into the historical practice of exorcism. It's often pretty terrifying and horrific, but fascinating at the same time. There were some extremely brutal processes to get rid of demons, and it's no wonder so many of them were fatal. My sister the literature scholar and I were discussing exorcist horror movies briefly last night, and I really think sometimes they should go the other way, with the horror part not being the person who's being possessed but the exorcism itself instead. Well, maybe they already do. I'm not so much into the horror movies...Scary stuff.

4/5

More big plans...

The end of the year is such a happy time because I can kind of ignore the fact that I'm so behind on challenges this year and just look towards all the beautiful challenges I probably won't JUST KNOW I'll finish next year. With that in mind, here are two more challenges...

This is the third time I've participated in the What's in a Name Challenge. I finished it this year, though not last year. I enjoy going through my outlandish TBR list and fitting books into the WiaN categories. For this challenge, read 6 books during 2011. Each title must meet a specific requirement. My books will be...

1. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (number)
2. The Diamond - Julie Baumgold (jewelry or gemstone)
3. Small Wars - Sadie Jones (size)
4. The Walking People - Mary Beth Keane (travel or movement)
5. On Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (evil)
6. Child of the Morning - Pauline Gedge (life stage)

The other challenge I'm joining today is the 2011 Global Challenge. Read books in 2011 that are all set on different continents. There are different levels for this challenge, and I'm choosing the easy level: one book set on each of the six inhabited continents and one set on a "seventh continent" which could be Antarctica but could also be space or the sea or a fantasy realm. My books will be...

1. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall - MG Vassanji (Africa - Kenya)
2. An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro (Asia - Japan)
3. Pobby and Dingan - Ben Rice (Australasia - Australia)
4. Small Wars - Sadie Jones (Europe - Cyprus)
5. The Day the Falls Stood Still - Cathy Marie Buchanan (North America - Canada)
6. Red April - Santiago Roncagliolo (South America - Peru)
7. The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde (7th Continent - though this is kind of set in England, it's weird alternative nursery land England)

The wrap up...

It's been a long time since I completed a challenge, so YEA FOR ME! I did have to make a change from my initial list since I couldn't get my hands on a copy of one of the books I was planning to read, but other than that there were very few problems. I didn't quit on any of the books, which is something of a problem for me this year. I keep trying to read books that are not for me. That's not a good idea. That makes me hate reading and go into reading/blogging hiatuses. But not this challenge! My books were...

1. Sir Percy Leads the Band - Baroness Emmuska Orczy 4/5
2. The Whisky Rebels - David Liss 4/5
3. The Last Queen - CW Gortner 5/5
4. Like Mayflies in the Stream - Shauna Roberts 3/5
5. Peony in Love - Lisa See 4/5
6. Looking for Alaska - John Green 4/5

Wow. Unusually, not only did I finish everything, I more or less liked everything. Way to go, Challenge!

Looking for Alaska - John Green

looking for alaska
john green
c. 2005
221 pages
completed 11/7/2010

read for: what's in a name challenge

*may contain spoilers*

The week before I left my family and Florida and the rest of my minor life to go to boarding school in Alabama, my mother insisted on throwing me a going-away party.

Miles has decided to leave home and family in Florida in favor of boarding school in Alabama, searching for, in the words of Francois Rabelais, The Great Perhaps. At Culver Creek school he finds friends and adventure, something other than the books of famous last words that were his only comfort at home. But just like Miles, there's more to his new friends than initially meets the eye and in the aftermath of a huge incident in the middle of the school year, Miles has a hard time understanding exactly who these new friends are.

I don't often read a lot of young adult novels anymore. For one thing, at 25 I'm not exactly their target market. But more than that, I sometimes think they try too hard. Before I continue, I realize I'm making a wide generalization. I'm not really talking about young adult genre novels, but books that are just marketed as YOUNG ADULT FICTION, stuff that is supposed to be literary fiction for a younger audience. And even then I know I shouldn't generalize like this, but I'm going to anyway. I'm off-put by young adult books because they always seem to have to be ABOUT SOMETHING. They're about bullying, or teen dating violence, or anorexia, or drug abuse. They can't just be about life, they have to talk about some kind of hot button issue within the teen world. I'm sure I'm being unfair, but that is the way I see YA being marketed anymore. And not to say that those issues shouldn't be addressed in literature, but sometimes a book that's solely about one of those things can get a little bogged down in the one issue. I feel this same way about adult literature such as "cancer books," "grief books," and "middle aged women un-fullfilled in their marriages books."

With all those pre-conceived notions in my mind, I was a little apprehensive going into this but I ended up really liking it. I think there was definite potential for this to become an "issue book" with messages of the evils of self destruction and drunk driving oozing off every page, but instead those issues were seamlessly incorporated into regular kid life. In fact, with most big issue books (YA or otherwise) it's almost impossible to go into the book with no idea what the issue is. You know going in it's a book about bullies or cancer or domestic abuse, etc. With this book, when the incident happened I was shocked. It's so much better to read something shocking when you don't know going in it's going to happen.

One thing I really appreciated was that the group of friends Miles found himself in the middle of weren't on an extreme of the social scale. Instead, the characters felt very real. They were funny and stupid and talked pretentiously about subjects they didn't fully understand yet, just like regular kids. I think too often teens are depicted (and at this point I'm talking about movies and TV and everything) as either the most popular kids in school or total losers. There are never any average kids anymore. These kids were just average kids and they weren't struggling to improve their social standing. They had found their niche and were happy with the people that surrounded them.

I know I've done a lot of ripping on YA books in this post, and like I said above I'm sure that some of what I've said isn't fair. This book hasn't changed my mind or anything. I'll still probably steer clear from what I see as "issue books," and maybe I'll be missing out on some good things, but that's okay. Other people are able to appreciate them more than I do, so those are the poeple who should be reading them.

4/5

Peony in Love - Lisa See

peony in love
lisa see
c. 2007
273 pages
completed 11/6/2010

read for: what's in a name challenge, year of the historical challenge

*may contain spoilers*

Two days before my sixteenth birthday, I woke up so early that my maid was still asleep on the floor at the foot of my bed.

In seventeenth century China, after the invasion of the Manchus, Peony is about to turn sixteen. During her birthday celebration, when she is privileged with the extremely rare experience of witnessing a performance of the famous opera The Peony Pavilion, Peony accidentally meets a man and instantly falls in love. Knowing she is already betrothed and very soon to be married, Peony tries to cherish her few stolen moments with her stranger, taking to writing a detailed commentary on the text of The Peony Pavilion. So obsessed with her project and her doomed love for her stranger, Peony's life begins to mirror the life of Liniang, the heroine of The Peony Pavilion, and she soon succumbs to "lovesickness" and dies before her wedding. Now a ghost trying to navigate the afterworld, Peony must watch and nudge her betrothed's next two wives to complete her project and help her find peace as an ancestor. Peony in Love is based on the actual events that led to the writing and publishing of The Three Wives' Commentary on the Peony Pavilion, one of the first books of its kind written by women.

I am not entirely sure what happened, but somehow in the past months I've gone into a major anti-reading funk. October was ridiculous in my lack of motivation to read anything. It took me a month and a half to start and discard only two books. So yea for this one for holding my attention the whole way through.

I enjoyed Peony in Love much more than I enjoyed See's earlier novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. I felt Snow Flower's story kind of sputtered a lot, like there was a lot of start and stop. With Peony, however, I felt there to be a much more consistent flow, and I was equally intrigued by the story and the wealth of information regarding seventeenth century Chinese history, custom, and beliefs of the afterworld. I remember being annoyed by aspects of Snow Flower's story, but really enjoying the cultural information. In Peony I found both facets to be extremely compelling. Particularly, I was really interested in the ideas of the ghosts and spirits of the afterworld. Some of the beliefs seem so bizarre and arbitrary to me (as I'm sure my own beliefs would seem to someone who had been raised with this knowledge of Chinese ghosts). I especially liked the notion that Chinese ghosts can't make sharp turns. As such, zigzag bridges were apparently built all over China to keep ghosts from being able to enter and haunt the villages.

To be completely honest, the fact that Peony's stranger and Peony's betrothed husband turned out to be the same person annoyed me. Actually, no, that's not true. I probably could have gotten behind that. What annoyed me was how quickly I realized they were the same person, but how it took Peony until she was basically dead to come to the same realization. So really, I was annoyed with Peony because if she'd just opened her eyes a little bit she could have been happy. But I guess that's the point. She is kind of blind and childish in the beginning, but through her journey she becomes enlightened.

Two things I wanted to mention...

First, I found it extremely fascinating the way anorexia in this story was seen as "lovesickness." Whether or not Peony actually fell in love with Wu Ren in that initial meeting, which I'm not one hundred percent sure she could have in so short a time, it did awaken a realization of her complete lack of control in her own life and destiny. This was probably the same with the other lovesick maidens. Like the doctor in the story claimed, their access to The Peony Pavilion was in some ways dangerous as it portrayed a woman who was able to choose her own destiny, something these women who were reading it (and in extremely rare cases, seeing and hearing it) were in no way able to do, and it gave them a desperate and ultimately fatal yearning for a life they couldn't have. Just like many modern people who suffer from anorexia, Peony's mania for her project and her refusal to eat were ways to exert some sort of control on her life. Please keep in mind as a disclaimer, though I can objectively see how The Peony Pavilion could have played a role in the deaths of these lovesick maidens during this time in Chinese history, I in no way agree with the doctor and other men in this story who used this phenomenon as an example of why women should be kept illiterate and uneducated. Let's advocate education for everyone.

Second, I am extremely impressed with Lisa See's ability to include detailed information about certain Chinese customs in such a neutral and unbiased way. While the process and the dangers of foot binding, for example, are in no way sugar coated (especially in Snow Flower where the entire procedure is described in excruciating detail), they are also not simply dismissed and demonized to perhaps appease a Western audience. Instead, perfectly bound feet are portrayed as a mother's greatest display of love for her daughter. While I, as a contemporary American, can read about that process and feel it to be unnecessarily dangerous and torturous, Lisa See leaves that opinion entirely up to me to come to on my own and leaves Peony and her family's opinions of foot binding as historically accurate as possible. I found that extremely well done.

I always like it when something I read makes me interested in reading something else. I've now acquired a copy of The Peony Pavilion and am excited to read it, though I don't think there's any easy way for me to get my hands on a copy of The Three Wives' Commentary. Sometimes, though, I'm more excited to learn about specific historical texts than I am to actually read them. We'll see how this goes.

4/5

Like Mayflies in the Stream - Shauna Roberts

like mayflies in the stream
shauna roberts
c. 2009
189 pages
completed 6/1/2010
read for: what's in a name challenge

*may contain spoilers*

Around the shrunken water hole, scrawny gazelles jockeyed for position.

A novelization of the legend of Gilgamesh. Beginning with the origins of Enkidu, the wild man, Mayflies tells the story of a corrupt and childish king (Gilgamesh) who both terrorizes and neglects his people, and the priestess (Shamhat) who braves the wilderness in order to tame the wild man in the hope that he will in turn humble and tame the wild king.

There are a lot of elements of this book that were really strong, particularly the historical detail. There was a lot of interesting descriptions of daily life, ritual, and religious customs that were well incorporated into the story. Never did the descriptions feel textbook-like which I find can be a problem sometimes when writing about such a lost, ancient culture. Instead, the reader came to understand these aspects of life almost through experience rather than a recitation of fact. But to be honest, I wanted to like this a lot more than I did.

While I enjoyed the historical and cultural elements, and really enjoyed the brief author's note describing her research and what kinds of documented history she had to go on, I just never got invested into the actual story. I wasn't compelled by any of the characters except Shamhat, and even she fell a little flat for me at times, specifically with regard to her relationships (I don't think I can bring myself to classify them as love) with Zaidu and Enkidu. Perhaps they would have been more believable had the book been longer and more time could have been spent developing the turning points in their respective relationships. Shamhat was mourning the death of Enkidu, who she claimed to have loved, when Zaidu turned up at her door out of the blue and she was suddenly so eager to run away with him. I didn't quite buy it.

Also, something about the prose itself rubbed me the wrong way. Both the conversation and the narration had a very modern feel which jarred a little with the incorporation of more ancient ideas and beliefs, such as using the liver to experience the emotions we in modern society attribute to the heart. That, however, could well be just a personal preference and while it might not phase another reader, it just didn't quite work for me.

3/5

The Last Queen - CW Gortner

the last queen
cw gortner
c. 2008
359 pages
completed 4/27/2010

read for: what's in a name challenge, year of the historical challenge

*may contain spoilers*

Midnight has become my favorite hour.

At sixteen, Juana is sent to Flanders to marry the future Duke. Juana only agrees to the marriage in order to provide security against France to her beloved and newly united Spain. She looks to the marriage as nothing more than duty, but upon meeting Philip falls quickly in love. They spend four years happily and passionately married, but during that time three consecutive heirs to the Spanish throne die, leaving Juana next in line with Philip as her grudging subordinate. Unwilling to yield power to his wife, Philip challenges Juana's right to the throne and their marriage quickly sours, leaving the two former lovers in a bitter rivalry for the throne.

I had to read this book in like two days because I realized it was due back at the library and someone else had a hold on it so I couldn't renew it. Got it in only one day late, so only a quarter fine added to my bill which I swear one day I'll pay. There is a fine on my account that is at least four years old but they don't cut off your card or send a collection agency after you until you reach fifty dollars so I've got time.

So anyway I totally rushed through this book. Thankfully it fully held my attention and didn't put me to sleep (as most books do, even the ones I really like). Again, this is an area of history I'm fuzzy about. England at this time I'm great with, but let's be for real, I got this book positive it was about a queen of Portugal. Nope. So obviously I won't even pretend to comment on historical accuracy. I'm always excited when books come with a historical map in the front to help the reader follow along, and the map was especially clear and helpful. I still have some confusion over what constituted the Holy Roman Empire (and Emperor) so I should probably look into it instead of just glossing over it. I think it's always good when a historical fiction novel like this inspires the reader to do their own research. And by research I mean Wikipedia (God's gift to the digital age).

As for the characters, I thought they were interesting and engaging. Everyone seemed so conflicted. There were very few who thought of much other than their own gains (the exceptions being the Admiral, Beatriz, and Soraya, all of whom I loved). So naturally there was a lot of intrigue, never quite knowing whose side anyone was on. I tend to latch onto rather random, insignificant characters for some reason, so while she wasn't really in too much of the novel, I think Philip's sister Margaret was my favorite. She was kind and joyous with just the right amount of raunch to make her a bit spunky but not obnoxious. And she had my favorite line of the novel, "but for the burden of others, my own might be too great to bear." I don't know, but that stuck with me.

I really enjoy historical fiction, especially about actual historical figures, but I have really read some downers lately, this one being no exception. I realize these are probably the more interesting stories and figures, but someone needs to write about someone that ended up okay. No more Debbie Downers, people, just Positive Pattys!

5/5

The Whiskey Rebels - David Liss

the whiskey rebels
david liss
c. 2008
522 pages
completed 3/15/2010

read for: what's in a name challenge, year of the historical challenge

*may contain spoilers*

It was rainy and cold outside, miserable weather, and though I had not left my boardinghouse determined to die, things were now different.

Ethan Saunders is a veteran of the American Revolution who was shamefully and unceremoniously ejected from the army as a traitor. Joan Maycott is a young bride who risks everything with her husband to try for a new life on the frontier. The country is new and under the leadership of George Washington, but with Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of Treasury, bitter rivals. As Hamilton attempts to launch his new pet project, the National Bank, Ethan and Joan find themselves on opposite sides of a plot to take down the government.

This book was a lot of fun, especially coming off a quarter of school where I studied the National Bank and the rivalry of the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians. Yea school! I've read a good deal set during the Revolution or leading up to the Revolution, but I don't think I've ever read anything set directly after it when the government was in such a precarious position and was already making some major changes from what the authors of the constitution had in mind (political parties anyone?). So I was very intrigued with the setting and glad I already had some knowledge of the contemporary issues. I don't think it would take anything away from the novel if you went into without knowing anything about the conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson, but I enjoyed knowing. All the reader would really need to know is Hamilton=pro bank and Jefferson=anti bank.

The way the story is told is very interesting. Chapters alternate following Ethan and Joan, with each speaking in first person. Joan's story starts several years before Ethan's and about halfway trough her story begins to align with the beginning of Ethan's. So questions about the beginning of Ethan's story get answered once the reader is privy to Joan's side. Eventually the two stories meet up and we see the end play out. I felt this way of telling the story was very effectual. At first, I was slightly put off because the two stories seemed so distant from each other that it felt a little abrupt going from one to the other, but I quickly began to enjoy the back and forth.

I had very few complaints with the story. For the most part I was constantly entertained, I thought the history was extremely accurate, and the characters were well fleshed out. I did not, however, find the relationship between Ethan and his slave Leonidas to be believable. Whether or not Ethan was against slavery, very rarely at this time would an anti-slavery stance equal a stance of racial equality, so I found it hard to believe that Ethan, Lavien, Joan, and all the others in their respective groups would treat Leonidas as companionably as they did. I also found the end to be a little abrupt. I felt like we got a good wrap up on Joan's side. She explained what happened to her and the rest of her friends. But I didn't get the same sense of closure from Ethan's side. What happened to him and Lavien? Why exactly was Pearson out to get him? I could have used a few more answers. I will have to look into more by David Liss.

Once again, I have added a new author to my ever growing list of authors to continue reading.

4/5

Sir Percy Leads the Band - Baroness Emmuska Orczy

sir percy leads the band
baroness emmuska orczy
c. 1937
316 pages
completed 1/27/2010

read for: french revolution mini challenge, what's in a name challenge, scarlet pimpernel series

*may contain spoilers*

The Hall of the Pas Perdus, the precincts of the House of Justice, the corridors, the bureaux of the various officials, judges, and advocates were all thronged that day as they had been during all the week, ever since Tuesday when the first question was put to the vote: "Is Louis Capet guilty of conspiring against liberty?"

Unfortunately, we already know the answer to that question, at least in the minds of those presiding over Louis Capet's trial, is "yes." And so the King is sentenced to death by guillotine, and there is nothing anyone can do, not even someone as daring and elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel. That being said, the Abbé called to administer to the King before his death is now in danger of being renounced as a traitor to the republic, and the Pimpernel and his League must spring to action in order to save him, no easy task as the Abbé is being hunted all over France. The Pimpernel seems to have enough on his plate as it is, but the League is about to discover they may have their own traitor in their midst...

Okay! Book two of the Scarlet Pimpernel series. In all actuality this was written almost thirty years later than the original. The series was written out of chronological order. Some people, I'm sure, read them in the order in which they were written, but I have always been a slave to chronological order and so have to read them that way or not at all.

While not quite as good as the original, this installment was a lot of fun. Percy's many disguises, each more over the top and ridiculous than the last, are always exciting to discover. The action was pretty consistent so there were no sections that dragged along. Percy's one confrontation with Chauvelin was pretty funny. I could just imagine Chauvelin's blind rage at being flung over Percy's shoulder and being hauled down to the cellar like a sack of potatoes, and that ridiculous image alone almost made me laugh out loud.

I really like the character of Percy. He's witty and ridiculous (how many times can I use that word in this review?), the most quintessential fop imaginable, even when holed up in a shack wearing rags and sharing a stale loaf of bread with his comrades. That being said, he still cares a great deal for honor, something shown very much in his dealings with St. John Devinne. While I like the comedy his foppishness brings, it's nice to see his serious side poke through every once in a while.

I did very much notice the absence of Marguerite. One thing I loved so much about the original was the love and tension between Percy and Marguerite, but she was completely absent from this episode and I definitely missed the dynamic of their relationship. I am looking forward to more of her as I continue with the series. I believe at one point she becomes a member of the League herself (at least according to Wikipedia) so I know I will get to see her again. The lack of Marguerite was my only real complaint with the book. Other than that, it was exactly what I wanted from a Scarlet Pimpernel novel.

4/5

A rose by any other name...

In an attempt to make myself go completely bananas, I am signing up for another challenge for next year: the What's in a Name Challenge! Read six books in 2010, each with a different specific criteria in the title. My books will be...

1. The Whiskey Rebels - David Liss (food)
2. Like Mayflies in a Stream - Shauna Roberts (body of water)
3. The Last Queen - CW Gortner (title)
4. Peony in Love - Lisa See (plant)
5. Looking for Alaksa - John Green (place name)
6. Sir Percy Leads the Band - Baroness Emmuska Orczy (musical term)

I started this challenge last year, but didn't finish (since I quit all my challenges) so I'm excited to try again this year.

Miscarriage of Justice - Kip Gayden

miscarriage of justice

kip gayden
336 pages

c. 2009
completed 7/18/2009

read for: southern reading challenge and what's in a name challenge

*may contain spoilers*

Anna Dotson, a married woman living in Tennessee in 1911 with her husband Walter and their children, finds herself growing bored in her marriage. Her husband doesn't show he loves her the way he did when they were first married, choosing to spend more time at his clinic and involved in his community than with his wife. During this time, Anna meets and falls for Charlie Cobb, a local barber, who is dashing and exciting and sees her as she wishes to be seen, as a person as opposed to an accessory. Their affair is discovered and the fall-out leads to a murder trial.

Leading up to the discovery of Anna and Charlie's affair, this was not a great book. It was decent, but a little dry. I didn't really like the relationship Anna and Charlie shared, especially once we got a little deeper into Charlie's character. I wish he had been a bit better of a guy. Then I maybe could have gotten behind their affair a little more, as opposed to just thinking Anna was stupid.

Once their affair had been exposed, things got better. Walter's reaction, Anna's reaction, the murder and trial was where I thought things got interesting. The verdict was a BIG surprise and I'm so glad they explained how the jurors got to their decision. Whether or not it was the right decision...I'm somewhat torn. I don't necessarily think the punishment fit the crime, however after reading the explanation I suppose I think it's fair.

I did think it was interesting the way this story was supposed to draw a parallel to the suffragette movement. Women weren't necessarily just fighting for legal rights like voting rights and the right to sit on juries, etc. They were also fighting for the little things, to be looked at as a person by their husbands, as someone with needs and ideas and thoughts of their own. This book is a true story, and this trial was a bit of a breakthrough for the suffragettes.

3/5

The Tsarina's Daugter - Carolly Erickson

the tsarina's daughter
carolly erickson
c. 2008

336 pages
completed 6/23/2009

read for: what's in a name challenge

*may contain spoilers*

The Tsarina's Daughter tells the story of the last of the Romanovs, Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children, Tsarovich Alexei and the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia, through the eyes of Tatiana. From the beginning we learn that Tatiana has managed to escape the fate of her family, as another woman took her place during the last of her family's days in Siberia, and now as an old woman living in Canada has decided to share her story.

I loved this book. LOVED IT. I don't know much about the Romanovs other than the very basic facts and what little truth can be gleaned from that one animated Anastasia movie (which is obviously not much). I didn't realize it had ended during the middle of World War I, or how really awful things were in parts of Russia. And it was surprising to read that all the turmoil was really only happening in parts of Russia, like St. Petersburg and Moscow. So it was an interesting read.

I liked that in this book it was Tatiana who got away, as opposed to Anastasia as the legend usually goes. I wonder what made the author make this unusual choice of daughters.

I found parts of this story extremely frustrating just because Nicholas and Alexandra were appalling in this book. They were so out of touch and so ineffective as rulers. I don't know if this is what they were really like, but the way they were portrayed in this book makes it almost impossible to sympathize with them.

One thing I was a bit dissatisfied with was the character of Constantin. I liked him so much, and we spent so much time exploring his relationship with Tatiana, that is seemed very sudden when their relationship ended. I liked Michael, too, but I was already invested in Constantin.

5/5

The Teahouse on Mulberry Street - Sharon Owens

the tea house on mulberry street

sharon owens

c. 2005
321 pages
completed 2/3/2009

read for: well seasoned reader challenge, what's in a name challenge

*may contain spoilers*

This book was a little too chick-lit for me. Which is not me dissing chick-lit. Though I know there are some exceptions, that particular genre is not for me. It just seems there's a little too much sunshine and rainbows, even when we're talking about very sad and depressing things. For some people, that is what they like about chick-lit. So. To each his own.

I was a little distressed by the amount of adultery that went on during this book. At least FIVE different story lines centered around people committing or seriously contemplating adultery. And that just seems like too much. Is no one in Belfast, Ireland happily married?

3/5

That which we call a rose...

Another new challenge for 2009! I thought about participating in this challenge last year, but I didn't get around to it. This year I will. The What's In a Name Challenge...

Read six books in 2009, each title featuring one of the following categories:

1. profession

2. time of day
3. relative
4. body part
5. building
6. medical condition

For most of the challenges this year, I am really trying make them fit my out of control TBR pile, as opposed to searching for random books to fit the challenges. So some of my titles (those for profession, body part, and medical condition) may be considered a bit of a stretch.

My list will be...

1. The Tsarina's Daughter - Carolly Erikson (profession)
2. The Meaning of Night - Michael Cox (time of day)
3. American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld (relative)
4. The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter (body part)

5. The Teahouse on Mulberry Street - Sharon Owens (building)
6. Miscarriage of Justice - Kip Gayden (medical condition)

Like I said, maybe a bit of a stretch. But maybe that's the point...