The Bride's Farewell

May 16, 2012 Sandy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: england-west-country, 1800s, hist-fiction, ya, women-s-fiction

I started this book as an audio CD, then picked up the hard copy as the library as I got caught up in the story and didn't want to wait until the next driving opportunity. It was well narrated by a woman named Susan...? The story was good. Not complicated or sophisticated but I liked the main character and the back up characters were also well crafted. The book turned out to be YA, although that was not indicated on the CD. As a YA book, l'd recommend it to young girls as it is a strong story ab...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Terri Trimble rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-ya

The Bride's Farewell is set in mid-19th century Wiltshire and tells the story of runaway bride Pell. Pell's family is trapped in hopeless poverty, while her husband-to-be Bridie comes from a family that is "hard-working, honest and resourceful". They have been friends since childhood and it's assumed that they will be married one day, but Pell looks at her mother, exhausted from childbearing and disappointment, and rejects the future she represents. Because she can't bring herself to refuse Brid...more The Bride's Farewell is set in mid-19th century Wiltshire and tells the story of runaway bride Pell. Pell's family is trapped in hopeless poverty, while her husband-to-be Bridie comes from a family that is "hard-working, honest and resourceful". They have been friends since childhood and it's assumed that they will be married one day, but Pell looks at her mother, exhausted from childbearing and disappointment, and rejects the future she represents. Because she can't bring herself to refuse Bridie outright, Pell runs away on the morning of their wedding, taking her white horse and her adopted brother Bean, who insists on accompanying her. But she knows the farrier's craft and has a gift with horses, and these talents will be her currency.

Pell's journey is episodic – she meets a gypsy family, the trader Harris, a poacher called Dogman; she loses her horse and her brother and the five pounds she earned at Salisbury fair. Her path crosses and recrosses that of characters she's met earlier as she searches for what she's lost and the story is played out in "an intricate game of hide and seek across Salisbury Plain". Her story is interspersed with flashbacks which recount the history of Pell's family. Although these scenes are vividly evoked, they don't feel necessary and they slow down the story. Do we really need to know so much about Pell's four brothers, all dead before the novel begins?

This novel is so beautifully written that its flaws didn't strike me until after I finished it. Pell is a wonderfully resourceful and independent heroine, but her feelings were often murky, and at times I found it difficult to understand what she wanted. The main storyline is her ongoing quest as she searches for what she's lost and tries to find safety and security for her younger siblings, dispersed after a disaster strikes the family home. There is a romantic subplot which could have illuminated Pell's struggle to choose the future she wants for herself, except that her feelings aren't fully explored. The relationship seems to offer a happy balance between companionship and solitude; she feels content and free and allows for "the possibility that her condition resembled love", but I was never sure whether she wanted the relationship or simply accepted it. Although unconventional, it comes to resemble marriage, which she was running away from at the beginning of the story. Near the end of the novel there is a hint that she's pregnant, but it's not clear whether she still dreads the future she saw when she looked at her mother's worn-out body. Is it different because she's found a man she can truly love? Or has Pell's journey simply led her, by a circuitous route, to accept the fate she was trying to escape? The Bride's Farewell came close to being a brilliant novel, but left too many unanswered questions.(less)

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Apr 28, 2011 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Beautifully sparce, unsentimental writing. Hauntingly stoic characters, taking charge of their own destinies. Complex plot, rather like a rough roundabout: characters get on, fall by the wayside, meet up again...all have a part to play in Pell's story. And the romance....so understated (we never learn what the Dogman's name is!) Pell & he are perfect equals – working quietly alongside each other. No expectations, no force. Rather like animals sharing their existence. Actually the whole novel...more

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Apr 25, 2011 Debbie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, ya

I think both the picture on the cover and the cover blurbs do this rather remarkable and extremely UN-romantic novel a disservice. They make it sound like a rollicking, romantic romp, and those who come to it with those expectations will be sorely disappointed. I admit to beginning it with those pre-conceptions and almost bouncing off it, but because it was Meg Rosoff who is always good and because the writing is spare and compelling I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. The Bride's Farewell tells...more I think both the picture on the cover and the cover blurbs do this rather remarkable and extremely UN-romantic novel a disservice. They make it sound like a rollicking, romantic romp, and those who come to it with those expectations will be sorely disappointed. I admit to beginning it with those pre-conceptions and almost bouncing off it, but because it was Meg Rosoff who is always good and because the writing is spare and compelling I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. The Bride's Farewell tells the story of Pell Ridley, who runs away from home on the eve of her wedding, because she can't face the life she sees in front of her, a life like her mother's, full of children and drudgery. She is good with horses, and sensible and resourceful, but already knows how difficult it is for a pretty young woman without a husband or money to make her way in the world unmolested. She heads to Scarborough Fair to try to make her fortune. All this sounds like a ballad, or a fairy tale, and I think Rosoff knows perfectly well that's what her readers will be expecting. But it's as if she's saying, "um... no. Think life is a fairy tale? It isn't. Here's what it was _really_ like for a pretty young woman from a bad family in the mid-1850s." If this were your conventional romantic romp, Pell would have Adventures and meet some nice handsome young man whom she would spar with for several chapters and then grow to love, as he would learn to accept her independence and attitude, and they'd end up riding into the sunset together. Everything lost would be found again, good would triumph and all would live happily ever after. That is not what happens here. Or not in the ways that you might expect, if at all. It's about real choices. The unbreakable loyalties one has and the breakable ones and how to learn the difference. When to take what is offered and when to move on. How to live with the choices you have made. When someone or something might be better off without you. That matters of the heart are considerably more complex than you might have wanted to believe, or much simpler, perhaps. All this. It's a fine and thought-provoking book, if a little bleak.(less)

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Apr 21, 2011 Alice rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First off, let me say that I am an earnest fan of Rosoff's previous How I Live Now and What I Was. These two works display her ability to create rich characters worth caring about, around whom the story falls in place as a secondary element but a compelling one. I enjoy the voices of the narrators she creates and the voices they have, which are strong, sincere, and witty. So, yes, comparison with these previous works was inevitable. But I would have found The Bride's Farewell lacking without the...more First off, let me say that I am an earnest fan of Rosoff's previous How I Live Now and What I Was. These two works display her ability to create rich characters worth caring about, around whom the story falls in place as a secondary element but a compelling one. I enjoy the voices of the narrators she creates and the voices they have, which are strong, sincere, and witty. So, yes, comparison with these previous works was inevitable. But I would have found The Bride's Farewell lacking without these books with which to compare. With them, I also found it disappointing.

The characterisation is bland and hardly touched upon. Perhaps it's because Rosoff is so much duller in the third person, but I found it more to be 'Pell did this, and then Pell did that' instead of the interesting internal narratives, punctuated with good dialogue, that her previous works hook you in with. The plot wasn't exactly fantastic... frankly, that was boring, and I could have tolerated that if Pell was worth caring about. But none of the characters were drawn out, and I found myself ultimately apathetic about their fates. Scenes that should have been touching fell short because the characters involved were so uninteresting.

The annoying thing was that it could have been so much more interesting, and glimmers of potential made it all the more frustrating. The romance the cover synopsis dangles in front of you is, again, boring, because it was so unexplored. Emotionally it could have been something very worth looking at (and I know Meg Rosoff is good at making you like her love interests, even if they are unconventional and often inaccessible because of their remoteness), but it wasn't, because I Did Not Care. I cared more about the dog than Pell and her lover!

To sum it up, wasted potential. The voice was lacking Rosoff's usual charm and earnestness, the romance was dreary and minor, and with such undeveloped characters, the plot was just intolerably boring. It lacked the oomph (and the provocativeness, though I can live without the shock value) of What I Was and How I Live Now, and it was only the author's name on the cover that made me pursue it to the end, vainly hoping for a sucker punch that would have made it worthwhile.(less)

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Nov 18, 2010 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2010

http://www.hipsterbookclub.com/review...

Meg Rosoff’s novel The Bride’s Farewell has the ingredients of a fine story: a scenic rural setting and a headstrong heroine mix with the author’s refined prose in a tale of self-discovery. Ultimately, the story is just fine. Okay. But for a writer of Rosoff’s caliber, being mediocre is an unexpected disappointment.

Rosoff’s previous works, including the award-winning How I Live Now and the haunting What I Was, evidence her ability to craft complex, memorab...more http://www.hipsterbookclub.com/review...

Meg Rosoff’s novel The Bride’s Farewell has the ingredients of a fine story: a scenic rural setting and a headstrong heroine mix with the author’s refined prose in a tale of self-discovery. Ultimately, the story is just fine. Okay. But for a writer of Rosoff’s caliber, being mediocre is an unexpected disappointment.

Rosoff’s previous works, including the award-winning How I Live Now and the haunting What I Was, evidence her ability to craft complex, memorable novels. In comparison, her latest offering can only be described as simple and underwhelming.

After watching her mother’s spirit wither from the burden of a no-good husband, too many children, and not enough money, young Pell Ridley shuns the role of doleful wife. On the morning of her wedding day in “eighteen hundred and fifty something,” Pell steals away into the rural English countryside. Her prized white horse and young, mute stepbrother as her only companions, Pell chooses the unknown over certain misery with naïve optimism:

The open road. What a trio of words. What a vision of blue sky and untouched hills and narrow trails heading God knew where and being free—free and hungry, free and cold, free and wet, free and lost. Who could mourn such conditions, faced with the alternative?

Of course, her optimism soon leads to disappointment. Turns out hungry, cold, wet, and lost make for a less than tolerable journey. Over the course of the short book, Pell faces countless setbacks and curious characters, eventually forcing her to grow up, accept responsibility, and open herself to love.

The book suffers from an overabundance of melancholy in tone. The scenic rural landscape, while elegantly described, casts a gloomy shadow over an already bleak plot. Characters reveal their callousness, tragedies strike, and Pell’s spirit wavers. Though she remains a willful and resilient protagonist, a distinct sadness looms about her.

One could argue that Pell’s cheerlessness is justified, given the time period and circumstances. Rosoff deliberately embraces stark realism, lending the book a tone of authenticity. After all, women of the mid-nineteenth century suffered oppression and injustices inconceivable to modern readers. Pell’s prediction of her intended marriage is melodramatic but sincere:

I shall bring him his tea and work myself to death by the time I am thirty bearing children and scrubbing floors and working in the fields digging turnips till my hands bleed and my back gives out and everyone urges me to keep on for just one more year, at which point I will die of exhaustion and the meagerness of my own life.

Pell’s disheartened attitude swells throughout the novel, as she experiences loss and disappointment. When something good—or at least not terrible—happens, she reacts with mild indifference. After losing everything and everyone of value to her, she eventually reclaims something resembling a stable life. Still, Pell exhibits little evolution of character, her defiance fading into tired submission:

Incessantly, it seemed, life plagued her with responsibilities, made her fall in love, ripped away any consolation she might find. Sisters and parents, brothers and horses… All staked their claim on her, each conspiring to weigh down her soul… Every day brought unwanted connections, losses, and complications that broke her heart.

The somber and defeated tone weighs down a story that could have been more exciting and inspiring. Rather than offering a moment of escapism via historical fiction—the book features exotic gypsies, a handsome and brooding hero, and a rustic setting—The Bride’s Farewell depresses readers. Not even Rosoff’s exceptional writing could save this downer. (less)

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Aug 30, 2010 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

I loved this and lapped it up in a night, like ice cream. Set in the middle of the 19th century in some wild back of beyond British setting right out of Hardy, it tells a fairy like tale of Pell, a 17 year old bride to be who flees a future that she knows will confine her like a coffin: marriage and "a house full of children." As the eldest daughter of 8 children born to a haggard mother and an abusive "preacher" father, Pell wants nothing to do with such a life, though Birdie, her intended, has...more

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Jan 29, 2010 Palateenbrary rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: teens and adults

Shelves: january-2010-new-books

See the review on our teen blog! http://palatinelibraryteens.blogspot....

In Meg Rosoff's latest book, The Bride's Farewell, readers are transported to rural England in the 1850s. The book begins with a gallop, literally, and the pace never slows from page one. Pell Ridley is a runaway bride, and on the morning of her wedding, she takes her trusty horse, Jack, and rides away from a future of toil and child-rearing and into a future of uncertainty and adventure. Except that Bean, her mute younger...more See the review on our teen blog! http://palatinelibraryteens.blogspot....

In Meg Rosoff's latest book, The Bride's Farewell, readers are transported to rural England in the 1850s. The book begins with a gallop, literally, and the pace never slows from page one. Pell Ridley is a runaway bride, and on the morning of her wedding, she takes her trusty horse, Jack, and rides away from a future of toil and child-rearing and into a future of uncertainty and adventure. Except that Bean, her mute younger brother, stubbornly insists on joining her. And so the unlikely trio of heroes face the open road together.

Pell is a fiercely independent heroine, and sometimes a bit too hard-headed, which gets her into trouble. But, she does have one talent: she knows horses, meaning she can discern their nature and temperament with just a glance. Trained from a young age by the local blacksmith to raise horses, Pell thinks her experience will help her find work at the Salisbury horse fair. With that vague destination in mind, they set off, having never been far beyond the limits of their small, impoverished village.

While reading the story, I couldn't help but be reminded of the limited freedom women had back then (and continue to have, in some cases). For instance, townsfolk make all kinds of presumptions about the moral character of an unaccompanied young woman traveler with a small child. Pell is also paid much less whenever she finds work because she is female. She also has little or no education, since her father only provided formal schooling for his sons. Growing up, Pell saw her mother waste away under the burden of raising nine children without support from her drunken husband, and says to herself, "Not now, not ever." Even though she knows she could love Birdie (her fiance and childhood sweetheart), she knows the lack of freedom would kill her spirit in the end.

Although the book is short, it has an epic, sweeping feel, like one of Robin McKinley's novels. (It's almost The Hero and the Crown--fiesty, unconventional heroine with a white horse, minus the dragon-slaying, of course). The sights and sounds of the bustling Salisbury fair give you glimpses into a bygone era, and the author describes the milieu of gypsies, traders, and horses with such description that you wonder if she had been there herself. When Bean becomes separated from Pell and she faces all kinds of hardships, you can't help but feel lost with despair along with Pell. But, you also keep hoping, right along with her. This is a great read for young adult and adult escapists, dreamers, and adventurists.

I'll end with one of my favorite passages from the book that best defines Pell's character:

"For those poor souls who can only think of the terrible fear and danger of a runaway horse, think of this: a speed like water flowing over stone, a skimming sensation that hovers and dips while the world spins around and the wind drags your skin taut across your bones. You can close your eyes and lose yourself in the rhythm, because nothing you do or shout or wish for will happen until the running makes up its mind to stop. So you hold steady, balancing yourself in the wake, and unhook your mind from the everyday while you wait at the silent center of it all and hope that the feeling won't stop till you're good and ready for life to be ordinary once more.The problem being that she never was."
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Dec 06, 2009 Paradoxical rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-reading-list, books-otherwise

Bleakkkk is pretty much the word I think of when I read this book. The heroine runs away from her impending marriage with a horse and her brother, but life afterward isn't a happy one. It's very bleak and grim and for every half-decent turn, the heroine gets beaten down a little further later.

I didn't connect with any of the characters well. Pell shows some fire with her decision to run away, but life has a way of beating you over the head (well, in this book) so that by the end she seems rathe...more Bleakkkk is pretty much the word I think of when I read this book. The heroine runs away from her impending marriage with a horse and her brother, but life afterward isn't a happy one. It's very bleak and grim and for every half-decent turn, the heroine gets beaten down a little further later.

I didn't connect with any of the characters well. Pell shows some fire with her decision to run away, but life has a way of beating you over the head (well, in this book) so that by the end she seems rather indecisive and heavy, like there's this weight on her shoulders that won't go away for the rest of her life (even if it gets alleviated somewhat later). For all that we got an occasional section detailing her brother's thoughts, he remained very one dimensional for me--he's a little boy that doesn't talk. And has a hard life (like the rest of them). The rest of the characters in this book aren't any better, and a great deal of them are rotten people who the reader would probably, gladly, chuck into a raging river. And the love interest? Well, he isn't even given a name and he's very much the epitome of the strong and silent type. He did, however, spark some of my interest--as in, what in the world is that man even thinking behind that bland face?

Admittedly, this isn't the type of book you go to for fantastical happenings (other the horse scenes in which Pell is apparently fantastic with them). All in all, it's rather depressing, and for all of Pell's struggles, to have the book end up as it did... Well, it made sense and you really don't expect anything more, but, well, can't blame a reader for wanting a bit more happiness in the main character's life.

There are good points to this book though. The writing is really rather lovely, even if you do feel detached from the characters. It's very smooth and made for a quick read. The starkness in the book rings true for life at that time, complete with the desperation and poverty.

To be honest, I'm rather on the fence about the book. It was well done, but it isn't, precisely, my cup of tea. And while I'm not the type of girl who needs her romances spelled out to every single letter, the relationship between the main character and her love interest perplexed me. I can see it happening, but something about it makes me twitch at the same time. All in all, I'd give this book 2.5 stars if I could. Since I can't, I rounded my score to 3 stars.(less)

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Aug 26, 2009 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: good-uns

When I'm opening up a new Meg Rosoff novel I literally never know what to expect. In a good way. She never tells the same story twice. She does generally center her stories around a character who feels ambivalent, anxious, or sometimes downright disenchanted with his or her world. She explores themes both serious and disturbing and her resolutions are bittersweet at best. And yet I love her writing. She's an auto-buy for me and has been ever since I first read How I Live Now and thought I would...more When I'm opening up a new Meg Rosoff novel I literally never know what to expect. In a good way. She never tells the same story twice. She does generally center her stories around a character who feels ambivalent, anxious, or sometimes downright disenchanted with his or her world. She explores themes both serious and disturbing and her resolutions are bittersweet at best. And yet I love her writing. She's an auto-buy for me and has been ever since I first read How I Live Now and thought I would come apart at the beauty of that book. Readers who love one of her books and long for more of the same with her other books will most likely be disappointed as they are all wildly different tales, the lovely writing being one of the only things they share. But how rare and fine a thing it is to have an author you can always count on but can never quite pin down.

Early on the morning of her wedding day, Pell Ridley sneaks out of the home she's lived in all her life, swipes her dowry money from the teapot, saddles her old horse Jack, and heads for Salisbury Fair. Determined not to become her mother--broken and beaten by a dissolute husband, a host of hungry children, and a hard life in general. Pell won't, she can't, stay and marry her childhood friend Birdie. No matter how much he says he loves her, no matter how many family members and friends are depending upon the match taking place. And so she rides away from it all with only the vaguest notion of finding work at the horse trading at Salisbury Fair. What Pell doesn't count on is her little brother Bean coming along for the journey. Bean doesn't talk, never has, but he seems to know Pell and understand her motives. More than that, he seems to have an essential role to play in what happens to her. She also does not count on the remote Dogman, a poacher she encounters first in Salisbury and once more far away from that place. Of course, nothing goes as it should. In fact, everything that can go wrong does and things get progressively worse as Pell desperately tries to maintain a modicum of control over her own life and, at the same time, not lose the one or two things she considers precious.

The thing about each of Meg Rosoff's novels is that they are short but they never feel short. Quite the opposite. They somehow manage to feel quite epic and THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL is no exception. I closed it feeling as though I'd spent years with Pell instead of the few months the story actually covers. The cover of this book reflects the story quite well. Dark, cold, and spare. The image of a lone white horse fleeing away across an open plain. Rosoff does not shy away from the darkness and despair caused by extreme poverty and an utter lack of options a young woman like Pell would have been familiar with in rural England in the mid-1800s. Her single action on the morning of her wedding day inadvertently sets in motion a chain of reactions she remains initially unaware of but the tale eventually comes full circle and Pell is forced to face the consequences of her choice. Some of them are fair. Most of them are not. I loved Bean. I loved Dogman. I loved Dicken the dog. Pell herself is often a mystery and I spent a good portion of the read attempting to see her clearly. It felt as though she was doing the same. She is a girl torn between her responsibilities and the desires of her spirit.

THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL is a smooth, at times extremely painful, read. It's hard to watch one bad thing after another happen to good characters. It's hard when they're forced to pay for their mistakes over and over again. But I've learned that with Rosoff it always pays to follow her through to the end. The dark and the dreary are balanced by the truly beautiful writing, the sharp glints of irony, and by the brief but shining moments of perfect understanding and compassion you feel when you're reading.(less)

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Jul 02, 2009 Diane rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In The Bride's Farewell, by Meg Rosoff we meet Pell Ridley. Pell is one of nine children who decides to run away on the morning of her wedding rather than go through with her marriage to a local blacksmith. Pell takes her horse Jack, her youngest brother Bean, who is mute, and some money that was saved for the wedding and, takes off for the horse fair hoping to make it on her own.

Pell is strong , smart and independent, and she seems to know what she she wants in life. She witnessed her mother's...more

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Dec 31, 2012 laurenpie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

need more fleshing-out; heads-up to moms

Struck me as a little odd. On the one hand her writing style has great potential: beautiful use of language in the sentences themselves, and the barebones plot and characters were interesting. On the other hand, I often felt that plot developments were just kind of thrown at me, they weren't well fleshed-out. However, when I finally realized this novel was meant for YA (my mistake for not noticing that before downloading), I felt the author could be excuse...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Scot rated it 3 of 5 stars

A 2010 Alex Award winner, this quick read is set in mid-19th century Wiltshire, though it has more of a medieval feel to it, a romanticizing of a pre-industrial past, as much of it takes place on rural roads, or with gypsies, poachers, or healthy ponies running through fields. I feared it would be heavy on romantic formula, given the title (and the cover, too, actually). I'm glad to say it was more of an adventure tale. The heroine Pell is a 17 year old proto-feminist who refuses to marry the un...more

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May 26, 2011 Ceilidh rated it 2 of 5 stars

I love Meg Rosoff’s work. “How I Live Now” and “Just In Case” were refreshing and vibrant, with a fascinating layer of unease throughout the simple but highly effective prose. Both books received mass acclaim, both from teens and adults, and many literary awards, such as the Carnegie Medal and Printz Award. I highly recommend her first two books to anyone in search of a book that proves YA can be just as moving, surprising and intriguing as anything intended for adults.

Unfortunately, I cannot sa...more I love Meg Rosoff’s work. “How I Live Now” and “Just In Case” were refreshing and vibrant, with a fascinating layer of unease throughout the simple but highly effective prose. Both books received mass acclaim, both from teens and adults, and many literary awards, such as the Carnegie Medal and Printz Award. I highly recommend her first two books to anyone in search of a book that proves YA can be just as moving, surprising and intriguing as anything intended for adults.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same thing for “The Bride’s Farewell.”
As always, Rosoff’s prose is wonderful, managing to be deceptively simple but striking and void of overt sentimentality. It’s certainly the strongest thing about this short book but great prose isn’t enough to make a story worthwhile. After a strong start and the initial establishment of a strong, independent heroine, the story quickly loses momentum and dissolves into many paragraphs of exposition and summaries more suited to a “Previously on...” introduction to a TV series than a novella. There is no real strong narrative to the novella; instead, we are left with chapter after chapter describing each unconnected thing Pell does, occasionally meandering off for a little exposition on a barely developed character of no real importance. I can’t blame the short length of the story for this since many wonderful novellas and short stories have been written before this that manage to get in ten times more characterisation and plot. Pell’s introduction started off so strong but quickly fell apart as it felt like Rosoff became bored with her own story and characters. So little time is spent allowing Pell to grow – and the few decisions she does make later on seem at direct odds with her early characterisation - and by the end of the book I felt apathetic towards her fate. I had similar feelings, or lack thereof, towards the supporting cast, who are so thinly drawn they’re transparent. Many of these characters also veered wildly into caricature territory. Almost every man in the story is a philandering drunk who does not care for his numerous children, while anyone who openly talks of faith and God is usually a ranting fool with no regard for kindness or basic human decency. Not only were such descriptions borderline offensive, they were also plain lazy. When the reader is asked to sympathise with one particular case – a man who abandoned his wife and child and only comes back to see his son to teach him to ‘be a man’ and hunt – because he becomes the designated love interest, it’s hard to stomach.

My biggest problem with the book came with the story. As I said before, there really is no strong narrative structure to “The Bride’s Farewell” as Pell meanders from one place to another, but almost everything that happens in this story is misery porn. If something’s going to go wrong then chances are it will. Pell is mistreated, mocked, left to starve, robbed, cheated, the whole shebang. Almost every woman that Pell encounters, no matter how long they appear for, immediately mistrusts her or believes her to be out to steal their men with her beauty, another lazy character element that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I am fine with unflinching unsentimentality, many writers have made masterpieces from such plot choices, but here it feels lifeless and completely pointless. Pell doesn’t grow as a character because of these events, she doesn’t become a stronger person (actually, I think she becomes even more downtrodden and submissive than before), so to pack this short book with such defeated angst for no reason feels like bad storytelling. It’s such a disappointment because I know Rosoff is capable of brilliance.

Someone asked me if it was worth reading a bad book if it had one truly wonderful redeeming feature, in this case the prose. Even though I think Rosoff is a wonderful writer and her prose is always strong, in the case of “The Bride’s Farewell”, it’s just not worth it. Great prose cannot singlehandedly support lazy characterisation, clumsy plotting and a story that seems more concerned with making its characters miserable than allowing them to truly grow. I cannot recommend Rosoff’s other books highly enough so I recommend you pick those wonderful pieces of YA up to read instead of this one, which I hope is merely a minor speed bump in her career.

2/5.
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Jun 25, 2010 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-books, historical-fiction, fiction

I'd read and liked three of Meg Rosoff's previous books (and particularly liked two of them—What I Was and How I Live Now), so when I read Emma Carbone's review on one of the NYPL blogs of The Bride's Farewell, I knew I'd want to read it eventually. But I wasn't sure I'd like it: after all, Emma hated How I Live Now, which I liked, and talked about how parts of this book were "bleak and miserable to the point of being excessive," and I wasn't sure I was that interested in the plotline. But now,...more I'd read and liked three of Meg Rosoff's previous books (and particularly liked two of them—What I Was and How I Live Now), so when I read Emma Carbone's review on one of the NYPL blogs of The Bride's Farewell, I knew I'd want to read it eventually. But I wasn't sure I'd like it: after all, Emma hated How I Live Now, which I liked, and talked about how parts of this book were "bleak and miserable to the point of being excessive," and I wasn't sure I was that interested in the plotline. But now, having finished it, I'm wondering why I waited so long.

The book's set in 1850s England, in the area around Salisbury, and is the story of Pell Ridley, a young woman who leaves home the day she was meant to be married. Pell is independent and strains against the expected roles of her time and place: she's a better farrier than her husband-to-be, knows horses better than anyone around, and doesn't want to be a wife, much less a mother: but she's poor, from a large family, not formally educated, and no other options are given her. So she decides to find her own future the only way she can think of: by leaving, heading first for the horse fair at Salisbury and then on to who knows where.

Without saying too much more about the plot, which turns and circles and moves interestingly, I will just say that I liked this book a whole lot: I like Pell and her understanding of animals and how she's observant and persistent; I like the setting, all the horses and dogs and the chalk landscapes of the south of England. Though there are indeed stretches of bleakness and moments where I squirmed and worried about the characters, none of it seemed gratuitous, and there are flashes of romance and love and joy, enough to make up for the rest.

And I really like Rosoff's writing, which is graceful and precise, each word well chosen. Like this, possibly my favorite paragraph in the whole book:

For those poor souls who can only think of the terrible fear and danger of a runaway horse, think of this: a speed like water flowing over stone, a skimming sensation that hovers and dips while the world spins around and the wind drags your skin taut across your bones. You can close your eyes and lose yourself in the rhythm, because nothing you do or shout or wish for will happen until the running makes up its mind to stop. So you hold steady, balancing yourself in the wake, and unhook your mind from the everyday while you sit at the silent center of it all and hope that the feeling won't stop till you're good and ready for life to be ordinary once more. (p 78)

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Jun 13, 2011 Thebookbutterfly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library, reviewed, uk

I have an unfinished copy of How I Live Now (bookmarked halfway through when I stopped about a year ago and never bothered to pick back up) sitting on my shelf, so I surprised myself when I picked up The Bride’s Farewell.

It looks like an easy read~ short and sweet, hinting at the kind of romance that you imagine must be epic with such a classic tale.

It is not easy, or short, or sweet.

It’s more like~

heartbreaking
tragic
thoughtful
honest

lovely with quiet moments of nostalgia, descriptions that will...more

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Apr 10, 2011 Adrianne rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: carnegie

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 09, 2009 Holly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of horses and Meg Rosoff

Shelves: historical-fiction

Ever since I read Meg Rosoff's fantastic dystopian YA novel How I Live Now I've planned on picking up another of her books. The desperate, traumatic, and epic-feeling story and the well-drawn characters sparked my interest initially; but it was the lovely, sparse writing which totally engulfed me and urgently pressed me to try another Rosoff novel. And the gorgeously despairing cover, the alluring historical British setting, and the doomed runaway bride premise of The Bride's Farewell made it ju...more Ever since I read Meg Rosoff's fantastic dystopian YA novel How I Live Now I've planned on picking up another of her books. The desperate, traumatic, and epic-feeling story and the well-drawn characters sparked my interest initially; but it was the lovely, sparse writing which totally engulfed me and urgently pressed me to try another Rosoff novel. And the gorgeously despairing cover, the alluring historical British setting, and the doomed runaway bride premise of The Bride's Farewell made it just the one.

It's the morning of Pell Ridley's wedding, and she's creeping out of the bed she shares with her three sisters and onto her horse Jack. Although Birdie says he loves her, she cannot marry him or anyone for that matter. She will not be her mother, abused and starved, bearing child after child to her drunken, good-for-nothing preacher father. So without much thought for where she will go or what she will do, Pell's off to the horse trading at Salisbury Fair, but not without the company of her mute younger brother Bean, who follows her out the door.

"The open road. What a trio of words. What a vision of blue sky and untouched hills and narrow trails heading God knew where and being free - free and hungry, free and cold, free and wet, free and lost. Who could mourn such conditions, faced with the alternatives?"

But being free involves even more suffering than she anticipated, and Pell's hardships are mounting - consequences or not - and she will learn that maybe we can't or don't ever truly wish to be free from our childhood and familial ties.

Like all of Rosoff's novels, I didn't know what to expect when opening The Bride's Farewell. I made sure I was in the mood for something dreary and possibly tragic but hopeful and totally different than anything I've ever read. I expected to savor the writing, and I did. Certain passages just struck me in their sharp depictions and poetic imagery. At barely over 200 pages its short but feels much longer and bigger than the few months the story covers. Pell is hard to decipher but likable in her tenacious will and unbreakable spirit. In the face of starvation, exhaustion, exposure, loss, and shame, she is ever patient and submitting in her search for work and a new life. Her kinship with horses and talent for horsemanship is admirable. I have almost no experience with horses but I was interested in all the breeds, temperaments, and delicate ways of grooming. The book also offered a new picture for me of 1850s Britain; the lowest of the lower class, the nomadic gypsies, and small rural town culture. Some of these images will stick with me. While the ending to Pell and Bean's story was fitting and offered some closure and sweetness after all that was bitter, the story left me somewhat underwhelmed in its simplicity and regrettably will not stay with me as much as I would've liked. Still, I would recommend it selectively and Rosoff definitely wins a prize for her unique and memorable character names. Daisy, Piper, Pell, Bean, Dogman, and Dicken the dog are all names that strike the perfect chord of uncommon but appropriate and even beloved. (less)

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May 24, 2011 Caren rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya

This book is short listed for the 2011 Carnegie Medal for children's literature, and I am not quite sure why. Although the protagonist is a teen girl, in our library the book is considered adult fiction. The first time I tried to read this, I put it aside and went on to other books. I came back and tried again, and this time made myself finish it. Maybe this is just not my sort of book, but I found myself not all that interested in the characters and what would befall them. The situations of all...more

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Feb 14, 2010 April Helms rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, young-adult

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book; I wasn't a big fan of "how i live now." But I really enjoyed this book. The basic premise is a pretty standard one: Pell, a teenage girl in the 19th century, runs away just before her wedding to Birdie, a neighborhood sweetheart. She looks at her family -- her alcoholic, abusive father and her worn-out mother -- and fears that could be her future. She leaves with her horse and her mute adopted brother Bean and crosses the country to go to the local fa...more

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Aug 19, 2009 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction, bildungsroman, british, historical

Back in library school, we read Rosoff's teen book How I Live Now. It turned out to be one of my very favorites of any I read while in grad school. I found out she had a new book coming out and checked it out a couple days ago. It doesn't quite live up to the surreal, traumatic, and desperate landscape of How I Live Now, but then again they're two very different books.

The Bride's Farewell follows Pell, a girl who runs away (on horseback--she's got a special talent for sizing up horses and blacks...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Emily Tippetts rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult

My first experience with Meg Rosoff was her debut novel, How I Live Now, which had very stylized, literary prose and a fairly straight line plot, through a virtual apocalypse. This book was different in almost every way. The main character, Pell, is the bride who runs off the morning of her wedding day, looking for freedom and adventure. She sets off across the countryside of England-on-the-cusp-of-industrialization. Once she's broken the bonds that have tied her down her whole life, the events...more

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Aug 20, 2010 Someoneyouknow rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. To be honest, I was disappointed by this novel. I’ve read 2 other books by this author – “How I live now” (one of my favourite YA books) and “What I was” (rather interesting), so I bought “The Bride’s Farewell”, expecting to really enjoy it, but a lot of events and characters in “The Bride’s Farewell” weren’t to my liking .

The tone of book is kind of matter-of-fact and bleak. Pell’s journey progressed at a too slow pace for my taste. There was barely any interesting action going on before Bean’...more To be honest, I was disappointed by this novel. I’ve read 2 other books by this author – “How I live now” (one of my favourite YA books) and “What I was” (rather interesting), so I bought “The Bride’s Farewell”, expecting to really enjoy it, but a lot of events and characters in “The Bride’s Farewell” weren’t to my liking .

The tone of book is kind of matter-of-fact and bleak. Pell’s journey progressed at a too slow pace for my taste. There was barely any interesting action going on before Bean’s and the horse’s disappearance. Besides, most secondary characters were rather unlikeable too. Sometimes it seemed like the whole world was against Pell – Harris robbed Pell of her money, Robert Ames’ mother and bride couldn’t wait to get rid of her, William (and Eliza too) were selfish brats that terribly mistreated Pell, the Andover’s workhouse owner indirectly caused Bean’s flight and Sally’s death, etc.
Quite a few times I enjoyed the flashbacks much more than the Pell’s adventures away from home. Meg Rosoff depicted the misery and penury of Pell’s family very well. I really felt for the girls whose life conditions gave them no good prospects for the future. Pell herself was horrified at the very likely image of her life with Birdie : “…I shall bring him his tea and work myself to death by the time I am thirty bearing children and scrubbing floors and working in the fields digging turnips till my hands bleed and my back gives out and everyone urges me to keep on for just another year, at which point I will die of exhaustion and the meagreness of my own life.” No wonder that she decided to flee her home in search of better fortune instead of marrying her beau.
Actually, at first I wasn’t very fond of Pell’s character. I think that this archetype (strong independent female protagonist) is overused, and the main character felt one-dimensional sometimes. But with time Pell grew on me. I enjoyed a lot her interactions with Dogman and her determination to find Bean and her sisters.
Also, I should mention that I always disliked books that focus a lot on the animals (“White Fang”, for example). I am much more interested in human psychology than in the behaviour and physiology of horses, which we’re swamped with in the first half of “The Bride’s Farewell”. Speaking of animals, I have to admit I was rather fond of Pell’s dog, Dicken. Rosoff portrayed him in such an adorable way!
Actually, the main reason why I decided to give three stars to this book was Dogman’s and Pell’s relationship. Dogman is actually my favourite character in “The Bride’s Farewell”. His silence and indifference towards our strong and independent protagonist made him rather intriguing, I was very curious about his past and the reasons why he was so reclusive. Sometimes the romance in fiction strikes me as cheesy/boring/predictable, but I really loved Dogman and Pell as a couple. It was obvious they cared about each other, but still maintained a lot of independence in their relationship.
I also liked several other things about “The Bride’s Farewell.” I think the author brilliantly described the dreadful life in workhouses. The starvation, the hard work, very bad living conditions and all of this experienced by children and teenagers horrified me. There was also one scene that made me laugh out loud (the dialogue between Pell and Robert Ames’ brother). The part when Pell came back to her village was really well-written, it was tragic and the twist with Esther having burnt Pell’s house which resulted in her parents’ deaths made me gasp with shock.

The ending was wonderful, in my opinion. The depressing story of Pell’s misfortunes ended (mostly) happily. I was glad that despite all her losses (parents, most of her sisters, brother, favourite horse) she found love and a new home in the end.
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Mar 09, 2010 Nicole rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: surprisingly safe for any teen girl

Shelves: ala-horn-book-says-so, book-club, ya, historical-fiction

Where's the edge, Meg? Where's the creepy factor? No incest, no abuse, no apocalypse. I hardly recognize you, Meg.

Despite it's serious lack of edginess and the fact that I am NOT a horse girl, I actually enjoyed this one. Because it was a Book CLub selection, I had my pen at the ready to take brilliant and thought-provoking notes. And yet. As I turned the final page, my notepad was still blank. I have absolutely no critical thoughts on this book. Not a one. You might be tempted to say it was my...more

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Jun 05, 2011 Lori rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: alex-award, historical-fiction

(Alex Award)

If one of my friends asked me if this book was worth checking out or buying, I would probably discourage them from doing so. That being said, I would be curious to see what another person thought of this book.

I was initially attracted to this book because of the title; having just finished the book moments ago, I can honestly say that the book is aptly named. I think the author had an interesting idea as far as the plot is concerned, but I felt that it was not executed as well as it...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Zainab rated it 2 of 5 stars

I picked up this book in the hopes that it would be an interesting love story. I mainly picked up this book because it was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

Though, my hopes were shattered whilst reading ' The Bride's Farewell.' It was quite flat and boring. The relationship between the female main character and the man introduced later in the book (cant remember his name) had no chemistry. At all. It was such a slow read and the characters were not very relatable.

Although, for some odd reaso...more

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Jul 17, 2010 Caro rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: beach-2010

The satisfying picaresque tale of a young woman who flees a long-expected wedding in her small English village and makes her way in the world with nothing but her horse, a small purse and her mute younger brother. Her strength of character is tested by numerous encounters with villains who mistreat children, steal horses and force their affections on her, and her search for her missing brother is heart-wrenching. Rosoff's love of horses shines through, and the ending is quite satisfactory. Still...more

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Jul 19, 2009 Sophie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-review, arc, signed

I was a little disappointed with The Bride’s Farewell. Meg Rosoff’s previous three novels blew me away, but this just didn’t.

Pell is a strong, independent heroine who knows her own mind. She knows what she wants and how to get it, which is what I like about her. But Pell also has a subtlety and charm that makes her a well-rounded character and very easy to like.

One of the reasons that I didn’t like The Bride’s Farewell as much as I thought I would may be down to my lack of enthusiasm for horses....more

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Mar 30, 2013 Dora rated it 5 of 5 stars

I wanted to give this 4.5 but I rounded it up because going lower wouldn't do it justice. How I Live Now was a very good read, but I actually enjoyed The Bride's Farewell, which seems underrated to me, more. How I Live Now was written in a very strange way, where most of the thoughts of the character and speech were often jumbled into one sentence, admittedly it did add to the character but the more elegant style as seen in this book, and the brilliant What I Was is much more of a joy to read. R...more

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Feb 21, 2011 Janice rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: cross-over-to-ya, grades-5-and-up

On the morning of her wedding, Pell and her brother, Bean, run away. Pell does not want to marry and especially not her best friend, Birdie. They make friends along the way to the fair. A servant of a rich man, gypsies, a horse trader. The horse trader asks for Pells help buying horses and then stiffs her for her share of the money. Bean goes after him and gets lost and ends up in a workhouse. Pell travels from town to town to find him. Meets up with the gypsies again, is offered marriage, later...more

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