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ricardienneSo I got my usual beginning-of-vacation cold last night, and I spent all of today reading:
The Secret History (Donna Tart). So what is it with classics majors being creepy and cliquish?And why are they always studying Greek, but never Latin? I couldn't help but think of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, except, with freakish and obliviously introverted undergrads committing murders instead of the Queen of Faery. Actually, it was more like a cross between Tam Lin and Special Topics in Calamity Physics. It was a book I admired very much, and thought was good, and meaningful and all that, but not terribly enjoyable.
Book of A Thousand Days (Shannon Hale): I liked this one so much: I think it's my favorite Hale that I've read (and sort of made me want to give River Secrets a second try). Being set in fake!Mongolia rather than Generic!Fake!Europe helped, and I always like stories told "from below" -- the maid's perspective rather than the princess's. But I was also impressed by how much development happened in the main character. The novel is in diary format, and it brought out little changes in Dashti and day to day variation in her attitude toward her place in life, her fate, her princess, etc. as well as the global "learning" that was obviously the point. Yay.
Montmorency and the Assassins (Eleanor Updale): I don't know why no one reads these books because they are SO good: severely injured pickpocket is saved by medical experimentation of brilliant doctor, proceeds to turn self into brilliant master thief, and thence into respectable upper-class type who enjoys the opera. And then has adventures spying and engaging in derring-do around late-Victorian Europe. What isn't to like? I love the characters, and the way they aren't able to resolve the big moral dilemmas, but instead try to smooth them over (the way people do), and how they are really good, decent, likable people even when/though they are sometimes doing highly questionable things. And in this book, the way all five or so principal male characters are each assuming that he is the father of Vi's son? Actually quite awesome.
The Secret History (Donna Tart). So what is it with classics majors being creepy and cliquish?
Book of A Thousand Days (Shannon Hale): I liked this one so much: I think it's my favorite Hale that I've read (and sort of made me want to give River Secrets a second try). Being set in fake!Mongolia rather than Generic!Fake!Europe helped, and I always like stories told "from below" -- the maid's perspective rather than the princess's. But I was also impressed by how much development happened in the main character. The novel is in diary format, and it brought out little changes in Dashti and day to day variation in her attitude toward her place in life, her fate, her princess, etc. as well as the global "learning" that was obviously the point. Yay.
Montmorency and the Assassins (Eleanor Updale): I don't know why no one reads these books because they are SO good: severely injured pickpocket is saved by medical experimentation of brilliant doctor, proceeds to turn self into brilliant master thief, and thence into respectable upper-class type who enjoys the opera. And then has adventures spying and engaging in derring-do around late-Victorian Europe. What isn't to like? I love the characters, and the way they aren't able to resolve the big moral dilemmas, but instead try to smooth them over (the way people do), and how they are really good, decent, likable people even when/though they are sometimes doing highly questionable things. And in this book, the way all five or so principal male characters are each assuming that he is the father of Vi's son? Actually quite awesome.
