![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
These two books really read like one narrative that happens to be split into two parts. It's the story of one year in the life of a group of seven kids who spend all their time together that year. Five of them are siblings/cousins, one is a hired boy, and one is the neighbour girl.
There's no real overarching plot, just a series of incidents in their lives. The books do a good job of showing characters, and of writing believably about childhood. But the whole thing is suffused with a very strong theme of feeling nostalgia for a good time of life that is gone forever. And I found this theme pretty wearing!
I mean, based on what wikipedia says about the stage in LMM's life when she wrote these books, I understand why she'd write that theme, but it's not one that's calculated to appeal to me. Childhood was not a perfect golden time, and also I'm the sort of person who's much more inclined to live in the present rather than pine for a time gone by, whatever that time may be.
So overall these books just don't really work for me, even though I do care about the characters and their lives. Ah well!
There's no real overarching plot, just a series of incidents in their lives. The books do a good job of showing characters, and of writing believably about childhood. But the whole thing is suffused with a very strong theme of feeling nostalgia for a good time of life that is gone forever. And I found this theme pretty wearing!
I mean, based on what wikipedia says about the stage in LMM's life when she wrote these books, I understand why she'd write that theme, but it's not one that's calculated to appeal to me. Childhood was not a perfect golden time, and also I'm the sort of person who's much more inclined to live in the present rather than pine for a time gone by, whatever that time may be.
So overall these books just don't really work for me, even though I do care about the characters and their lives. Ah well!
