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Entry tags:
books, omg!
It's been months since I've managed to finish anything, but I managed some short stuff this week and I'm taking wins where I can these days.
What I Just Finished
Ruined by a Rake, Erin Knightley, which was a perfectly pleasant Regency novella in which the evil stepfather's machinations are ruined by the combined efforts of the lady in question, his own son and his ex-sister-in-law. Nothing terribly ground-breaking or astonishing, but certainly good enough to read while waiting for kids at doctors' offices and karate studios.
Hideous Love, Stephanie Hemphill, a bit of historical/biographical fiction written in first person, free verse from the point of view of Mary Godwin as she meets and runs off with the very-married Percy Bysshe Shelley and proceeds to hang out with the rest of the Romantics and come up with the idea for Frankenstein.
I *know*: FREE VERSE? ME? *So* not my thing.
I have to admit it (the verse) was a little of a barrier, but it was pretty evocative and did fit with the rest of the craziness that was her life. Going in, I knew it was a wild life--though funnily enough, my 30-year-ago, high school lit class did not go into the fun details like how she was 16 when all this started and how her step-sister was maybe/maybe not keeping time with Byron, etc, etc, so I was a little hazy on the extent of the craziness.
I have to say that I got great enjoyment from some of the reviews I read, where the reviewers kept saying things like 'Percy comes off like a bit of a jerk, but of course this is Mary's story so it's all from her point of view and that could be biased' and 'Byron becomes a friend but he's kind of an arrogant ass, at least in Mary's mind...'
Wow, really? Shelley ran off with a 16-year-old while married to someone else, flirted constantly with her stepsister and he's only kind of a jerk? Also, Byron? arrogant? Who knew?
Anyway, now I want a non-verse version, with footnotes and historical portraits and maps of her travels, but seeing as how I literally just stumbled on this, it was a lovely surprise.
What I Just Finished
Ruined by a Rake, Erin Knightley, which was a perfectly pleasant Regency novella in which the evil stepfather's machinations are ruined by the combined efforts of the lady in question, his own son and his ex-sister-in-law. Nothing terribly ground-breaking or astonishing, but certainly good enough to read while waiting for kids at doctors' offices and karate studios.
Hideous Love, Stephanie Hemphill, a bit of historical/biographical fiction written in first person, free verse from the point of view of Mary Godwin as she meets and runs off with the very-married Percy Bysshe Shelley and proceeds to hang out with the rest of the Romantics and come up with the idea for Frankenstein.
I *know*: FREE VERSE? ME? *So* not my thing.
I have to admit it (the verse) was a little of a barrier, but it was pretty evocative and did fit with the rest of the craziness that was her life. Going in, I knew it was a wild life--though funnily enough, my 30-year-ago, high school lit class did not go into the fun details like how she was 16 when all this started and how her step-sister was maybe/maybe not keeping time with Byron, etc, etc, so I was a little hazy on the extent of the craziness.
I have to say that I got great enjoyment from some of the reviews I read, where the reviewers kept saying things like 'Percy comes off like a bit of a jerk, but of course this is Mary's story so it's all from her point of view and that could be biased' and 'Byron becomes a friend but he's kind of an arrogant ass, at least in Mary's mind...'
Wow, really? Shelley ran off with a 16-year-old while married to someone else, flirted constantly with her stepsister and he's only kind of a jerk? Also, Byron? arrogant? Who knew?
Anyway, now I want a non-verse version, with footnotes and historical portraits and maps of her travels, but seeing as how I literally just stumbled on this, it was a lovely surprise.