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sophia_sol) wrote2013-09-15 02:09 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2013-09-15 02:09 pm
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Latest update on my thoughts on the books I've been reading!
Pollyanna, by Eleanor H Porter
Huh. So I've read Pollyanna before but not for MANY MANY YEARS and what strikes me the most upon reading this is that the book it most resembles is Little Lord Fauntleroy: cheerful child who believes the best of everyone goes to live with cantankerous old relative and brings joy into the heart of the relative and everybody else in the vicinity.
But where Little Lord Fauntleroy has Cedric-the-impossibly-perfect-child who is just naturally all that, Pollyanna is a child who has to work at it. Pollyanna has been determinedly playing the "glad game" for years in order to make herself be a cheerful and believes-the-best-of-everyone kind of person, and although practice has made her good at it she still finds it really hard sometimes!
So I actually care about Pollyanna the person in a way I don't care about Cedric the person, and like her! (though ngl my fave character is Nancy.)
(of course, the way this book treats disability isn't the best: that having a long-term physical disability is pretty much The Worst Thing That Could Ever Happen To You. So there's that.)
Frontier Wolf, by Rosemary Sutcliff
Aaaaaaaaa reading this book now that I CARE DEEPLY ABOUT EVERYONE IN IT is a lot harder. I had to skip like HALF of the first chapter because I JUST COULDN'T HANDLE IT, ohhhh Alexios :(((((
And then EVERYTHING continues to be Everything Hurts Forever, agh, THIS BOOK. I kept on having to pause to keen quietly to myself before I could keep reading because SO MUCH DNW PAINFULNESS and even the lovely happy times are awful because I know what is to come.
Although actually the second half of the book where the bad things ACTUALLY happen isn't as painful somehow as the first half where it's all dreadful anticipation of what's to come.
I read this book the first time entirely because Hilarion sounded like a lot of fun and, well, yes Hilarion is amazing and perfect and I love him dearly, but then EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS BOOK HAPPENS. Rosemary Sutcliff is not interested in Happy Fluff, is she. Like, at all. It's all "how much agony can I put my readers through this time?" and the answer is A LOT.
At least it gets a happyish ending? Like, PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE IS DEAD AND EVERYTHING IS AWFUL but Alexios gets respect and promotion and Hilarion! So that's something!
In conclusion this is definitely my favourite of the Sutcliffs I've read (which now totals, what, four or five, I think?) and I love it forever and super definitely recommend it.
The Lost Prince, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
This is my second time having read this book, and my reaction is still lols at its complete ridiculousness but also MARCO/RAT 5EVA.
Pollyanna, by Eleanor H Porter
Huh. So I've read Pollyanna before but not for MANY MANY YEARS and what strikes me the most upon reading this is that the book it most resembles is Little Lord Fauntleroy: cheerful child who believes the best of everyone goes to live with cantankerous old relative and brings joy into the heart of the relative and everybody else in the vicinity.
But where Little Lord Fauntleroy has Cedric-the-impossibly-perfect-child who is just naturally all that, Pollyanna is a child who has to work at it. Pollyanna has been determinedly playing the "glad game" for years in order to make herself be a cheerful and believes-the-best-of-everyone kind of person, and although practice has made her good at it she still finds it really hard sometimes!
So I actually care about Pollyanna the person in a way I don't care about Cedric the person, and like her! (though ngl my fave character is Nancy.)
(of course, the way this book treats disability isn't the best: that having a long-term physical disability is pretty much The Worst Thing That Could Ever Happen To You. So there's that.)
Frontier Wolf, by Rosemary Sutcliff
Aaaaaaaaa reading this book now that I CARE DEEPLY ABOUT EVERYONE IN IT is a lot harder. I had to skip like HALF of the first chapter because I JUST COULDN'T HANDLE IT, ohhhh Alexios :(((((
And then EVERYTHING continues to be Everything Hurts Forever, agh, THIS BOOK. I kept on having to pause to keen quietly to myself before I could keep reading because SO MUCH DNW PAINFULNESS and even the lovely happy times are awful because I know what is to come.
Although actually the second half of the book where the bad things ACTUALLY happen isn't as painful somehow as the first half where it's all dreadful anticipation of what's to come.
I read this book the first time entirely because Hilarion sounded like a lot of fun and, well, yes Hilarion is amazing and perfect and I love him dearly, but then EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS BOOK HAPPENS. Rosemary Sutcliff is not interested in Happy Fluff, is she. Like, at all. It's all "how much agony can I put my readers through this time?" and the answer is A LOT.
At least it gets a happyish ending? Like, PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE IS DEAD AND EVERYTHING IS AWFUL but Alexios gets respect and promotion and Hilarion! So that's something!
In conclusion this is definitely my favourite of the Sutcliffs I've read (which now totals, what, four or five, I think?) and I love it forever and super definitely recommend it.
The Lost Prince, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
This is my second time having read this book, and my reaction is still lols at its complete ridiculousness but also MARCO/RAT 5EVA.