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Marya

maryaed@wyrms.de

Joined 1 year, 5 months ago

recovering Victorianist, tech worker, fan of giant books. Portland, OR.

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Maud Hart Lovelace: Betsy Was a Junior (Paperback, 1985, HarperTrophy) 3 stars

The Best School Year Ever

That's the kind of junior year Betsy Ray has planned …

Review of 'Betsy Was a Junior' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I'm sure I'm just becoming a grinchy communist in my old age, but the amount of money that must have gone into the clothes and parties in this book (in America in 1909!) made me see the sorority plot in a different light. On the surface Betsy learns not to be exclusive, but let's face it, to keep up with the Crowd you'd need quite a lot of clothes and free time (and her parents, throwing three-day parties that surely her guests would feel the need to reciprocate), so she was already living an exclusive sort of social life. It rang kind of hollow for me.

Also, parties in books are much more fun when they happen only once or twice. I'm on Team Margaret.

Meh. There are some nice bits but I wasn't too engaged.

Olivia Atwater: Half a Soul (2022, Orbit) 4 stars

Review of 'Half a Soul' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This started a bit slow and simplistic but picked up rapidly, and had a welcome crispness to it that's missing from a lot of both Regency and faery stories. Very good escapism, entertaining banter, and a nice social justice angle that doesn't strain credulity too much (faery balls and nonconformist heroines evading consequences are one thing, well-intentioned gentry Saving Society is just too much to swallow, and this book didn't ask me to, for which full credit).

Anna Meriano: This Is How We Fly (2020, Penguin Young Readers Group) 3 stars

Review of 'This Is How We Fly' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I wasn't going to review this but there seem to be a lot of polarized reviews of it, so here are some observations that might determine whether you want to put the time in:

--it isn't any sort of defense of Rowling, in fact it explicitly addresses the issue of how fandom can redeem the HP universe without endorsing her.

--it isn't high-literary whatsoever. It has funny and wry observations, but there's nothing stylistically interesting. The characters are as well drawn as they need to be for a compelling story, but there aren't enormous Insights lurking here, or unforgettable personalities. The teens are ordinary teens with slightly better than real dialogue.

--what I thought it did enormously well was capture the difficulties of late adolescence and how it feels to be fumbling around figuring out identity, and sometimes only knowing what you're against, in a world where there's so much …

Charlotte Mary Yonge: Heartsease or Brother's Wife (Paperback, 2002, IndyPublish.com) 4 stars

Review of "Heartsease or Brother's Wife" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

If you can't stand Christian redemption or the glorification of self-denial maybe you don't want to spend any time with Charlotte M. Yonge. There's a lot of that. The n-word is also sprinkled in here in a way I haven't noticed in her other works so be aware that's going to happen.

Having read most of her work this is a minor one but it's pretty interesting in addressing:

--living with chronic and acute illness
--poorly considered marriages and how they can be redeemed
--awkward class dynamics created by marrying down
--differences in character: Yonge is always attentive to how people have their own paths based on personality and therefore very different struggles
--the appropriate role of influence in women's friendships
--disability (there's an intellectually disabled minor character and one who's deaf and mute)

If you want the full Yonge experience starting with The Clever Woman of the Family or …