soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2014-04-22 06:55 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2014-04-22 06:55 pm
Entry tags:
- anent: book thoughts 1,
- author: ellis peters,
- author: georgette heyer,
- author: sharon shinn,
- author: zong in-sob,
- book theme: alternate earth,
- book theme: folk/fairy tales & mythology,
- book theme: history,
- book theme: mystery,
- book theme: reread,
- book theme: romance,
- book theme: translated,
- book theme: ya,
- fandom: fairy tales,
- pub date: 1952,
- pub date: 1959,
- pub date: 1961,
- pub date: 1988,
- pub date: 2007,
- rating: **,
- rating: ****,
- rating: *****
Books!
Briefly there I was doing really well at posting promptly after each book I read. Yeah, not so much for the last little while. So here's the last five books I read!
The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer
This one counts as one of my favourite Heyers, because I love the leading couple (especially the leading dude) so very much: Hugo the consummate Troll Hero and Anthea the doesn't-put-up-with-this-nonsense. LOVE ITTTT. But this book has a downside (as Heyer's books inevitably do) and that is its even-more-obvious-than-usual classism. I just feel so bad for Ottershaw at the end when the Darracotts band together to trick him re: Richmond's involvement in smuggling. RICHMOND IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW just because he is a Darracott! *sigh* Oh well, I love Hugo to itty bitty bits and delight in everything he chooses to be, and love rereading this book for that.
A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer
My sister reminded me that this one involved MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE. I love that trope! And somewhere I saw someone say that this is the Heyer for people whose fave Austen is Persuasion - and that's me. So I reread this one! And indeed this is a REALLY GOOD Heyer. While reading through most of it I simply couldn't remember why I hadn't originally ranked this as one of my favourite Heyers. And then the last page reminded me.
Let me take a detour to a book I really loved when I was a teenager, Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke. It is not what one would call a quality book -- the series it begins is a collection of excessively-Christian sentimental idficcy dreck. BUT. Love Comes Softly is also about a marriage of convenience, and there's a really good scene in it where the main female character (Marty) is talking with an older woman about love. And the older woman tells Marty that love isn't always a passionate whirlwind, and the type of love that slowly creeps up on you can be just as big and strong and important and real as the passionate variety.
And that's my problem with the last page of A Civil Contract: it acknowledges the presence and value of that quieter sort of love, but it still places that sort of love at a lower level of worth than passionate love.
And that just undermines EVERYTHING ELSE THAT CAME BEFORE in this book! The whole point of the book is that Jenny IS more right for Adam than Julia was, despite the passion he had for Julia, and if the book ends with his love for Julia still seen as more "real" despite their mismatch, then WHAT WAS THE POINT?
IDK, maybe my reaction is all out of proportion to what the end of the book actually says, but I really do find it an unsatisfying ending, especially since it comes so close to being an awesome ending. And it's too bad because there's so much else to love about this book!
Folk Tales from Korea, by Zŏng In-Sŏb
Good book! Good stories! Collected by a Korean person instead of it being a collection created by an outsider!
I liked getting these bits of insight into Korean traditional culture, and I liked seeing what was and wasn't familiar between these and other folk stories I know. One of the things I thought was neat was that there was less black-and-whiteness in terms of a person's character than is common in western folk tales, in two ways: one, in quite a few of these stories that "bad" character, after having things explained to them, repented of their bad behaviour and subsequently did not come to a bad end (room for redemption!); and two, stock character identities aren't the same between stories, such as tigers and Buddhist monks being able to be good or bad or in between instead of stuck in one category.
And of course, as in any folk tale collection, there was plenty of that delightful "WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS SO WEIRD" that's one of the things I love so much about folk tales.
General Winston's Daughter, by Sharon Shinn
I did not go into this book with high expectations. From the book description on the back, I was expecting a romanticization of alternate-world colonial Britain, plus an uninteresting love triangle. But it had been sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust for YEARS and I decided I really ought to give it a fair trial before getting rid of it. (No, I have no idea why I own it or how I acquired it. Or why I'm of the opinion that fair trials are necessary before purging books from my collection.)
But it turns out this book is a critique of colonialism instead of a romanticization of it! I'm still not actually a fan of where it went with this (cultural appropriation treated unproblematically for most of the book, ending with a decision by the main character to act as white saviour) but it's better than I was expecting. It romanticized the oppressed instead of the oppressors! Which...is still not great. But a slight improvement on what I was fearing, at least? And the love triangle turns out to actually be one of the better bits; I mostly like how it was handled, as love triangles go. (still not into the idea of love triangles)
Anyways I'm far more interested in Jalessa and in Ket Du'kai (Jalessa willing to do anything to free her country from invaders, Ket wanting to return his country to independence in a peaceful way) than the enthusiastic and naive white girl main character. I liked Averie well enough, but she was not the right main character for a book on colonialism. And overall the book treated everything in a far too simplistic manner. I enjoyed the book while I was reading it (a fast and easy read!) but it's not a book that stands up well to much thought or analysis.
Okay, there we go! Book has received fair trial and I'm not a fan and now I can get rid of it!
A Rare Benedictine, by Ellis Peters
Three short stories from times in Brother Cadfael's life prior to the beginning of the series proper! And pretty much my entire reaction can be summed up as follows: awww Brother Cadfael how are you so awesome? ILUUUUU.
The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer
This one counts as one of my favourite Heyers, because I love the leading couple (especially the leading dude) so very much: Hugo the consummate Troll Hero and Anthea the doesn't-put-up-with-this-nonsense. LOVE ITTTT. But this book has a downside (as Heyer's books inevitably do) and that is its even-more-obvious-than-usual classism. I just feel so bad for Ottershaw at the end when the Darracotts band together to trick him re: Richmond's involvement in smuggling. RICHMOND IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW just because he is a Darracott! *sigh* Oh well, I love Hugo to itty bitty bits and delight in everything he chooses to be, and love rereading this book for that.
A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer
My sister reminded me that this one involved MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE. I love that trope! And somewhere I saw someone say that this is the Heyer for people whose fave Austen is Persuasion - and that's me. So I reread this one! And indeed this is a REALLY GOOD Heyer. While reading through most of it I simply couldn't remember why I hadn't originally ranked this as one of my favourite Heyers. And then the last page reminded me.
Let me take a detour to a book I really loved when I was a teenager, Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke. It is not what one would call a quality book -- the series it begins is a collection of excessively-Christian sentimental idficcy dreck. BUT. Love Comes Softly is also about a marriage of convenience, and there's a really good scene in it where the main female character (Marty) is talking with an older woman about love. And the older woman tells Marty that love isn't always a passionate whirlwind, and the type of love that slowly creeps up on you can be just as big and strong and important and real as the passionate variety.
And that's my problem with the last page of A Civil Contract: it acknowledges the presence and value of that quieter sort of love, but it still places that sort of love at a lower level of worth than passionate love.
And that just undermines EVERYTHING ELSE THAT CAME BEFORE in this book! The whole point of the book is that Jenny IS more right for Adam than Julia was, despite the passion he had for Julia, and if the book ends with his love for Julia still seen as more "real" despite their mismatch, then WHAT WAS THE POINT?
IDK, maybe my reaction is all out of proportion to what the end of the book actually says, but I really do find it an unsatisfying ending, especially since it comes so close to being an awesome ending. And it's too bad because there's so much else to love about this book!
Folk Tales from Korea, by Zŏng In-Sŏb
Good book! Good stories! Collected by a Korean person instead of it being a collection created by an outsider!
I liked getting these bits of insight into Korean traditional culture, and I liked seeing what was and wasn't familiar between these and other folk stories I know. One of the things I thought was neat was that there was less black-and-whiteness in terms of a person's character than is common in western folk tales, in two ways: one, in quite a few of these stories that "bad" character, after having things explained to them, repented of their bad behaviour and subsequently did not come to a bad end (room for redemption!); and two, stock character identities aren't the same between stories, such as tigers and Buddhist monks being able to be good or bad or in between instead of stuck in one category.
And of course, as in any folk tale collection, there was plenty of that delightful "WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS SO WEIRD" that's one of the things I love so much about folk tales.
General Winston's Daughter, by Sharon Shinn
I did not go into this book with high expectations. From the book description on the back, I was expecting a romanticization of alternate-world colonial Britain, plus an uninteresting love triangle. But it had been sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust for YEARS and I decided I really ought to give it a fair trial before getting rid of it. (No, I have no idea why I own it or how I acquired it. Or why I'm of the opinion that fair trials are necessary before purging books from my collection.)
But it turns out this book is a critique of colonialism instead of a romanticization of it! I'm still not actually a fan of where it went with this (cultural appropriation treated unproblematically for most of the book, ending with a decision by the main character to act as white saviour) but it's better than I was expecting. It romanticized the oppressed instead of the oppressors! Which...is still not great. But a slight improvement on what I was fearing, at least? And the love triangle turns out to actually be one of the better bits; I mostly like how it was handled, as love triangles go. (still not into the idea of love triangles)
Anyways I'm far more interested in Jalessa and in Ket Du'kai (Jalessa willing to do anything to free her country from invaders, Ket wanting to return his country to independence in a peaceful way) than the enthusiastic and naive white girl main character. I liked Averie well enough, but she was not the right main character for a book on colonialism. And overall the book treated everything in a far too simplistic manner. I enjoyed the book while I was reading it (a fast and easy read!) but it's not a book that stands up well to much thought or analysis.
Okay, there we go! Book has received fair trial and I'm not a fan and now I can get rid of it!
A Rare Benedictine, by Ellis Peters
Three short stories from times in Brother Cadfael's life prior to the beginning of the series proper! And pretty much my entire reaction can be summed up as follows: awww Brother Cadfael how are you so awesome? ILUUUUU.
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b) LOVE COMES SOFTLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY OMG. I had a period of like five years as a tween where the vast majority of my reading material was my mom's Christian/inspirational romance novels, and I looooooved that whole series. It makes me kind of sad, now, because I can never reread all of these books that were totally foundational childhood reading, because when I go back I actually see all the religious blather that I just speedbumped right past as a kid, and it ruins the story for me. *g*
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