Michelle's comments (member since Sep 10, 2008)

Michelle's comments from the Endicott Mythic Fiction group.

i finished it a couple of days ago - ready for anyone elses' opinions. this one felt to me like the orchestra tuning up before the symphony. lots of interesting ideas, few of which are fully fleshed out. i'm absolutely intrigued enough to check out the next entry in the series to see where she goes with this!

is it just me, or does "historical" fiction always come across as a surprise? i mean that modern sensibilities (i.e., the art teacher that takes them to the caves) at first are jarring until i realize that yes, people "back in the day" weren't all simply products of their times, but were every bit as much independent thinkers as some of us today are. my initial kneejerk reaction is always to feel the author has placed her modern values on her characters, but that's a right simplistic view, to assume that everyone did actually buy into victorian repression...

just picked it up from the library yesterday evening...should be an interesting shift from my other book club read this month, 'the poisonwood bible'!

Pamela, i'm in the same boat with the library, though their website assures me i'm #1 in the queue for it.

A Great and Terrible Beauty



this was my selection for this month's read, anyone else thinking of picking this one up?

absolutely valid Pamela. and they did, after all, barely use changeling as more then a convenient tool rather than an active participant in the plot (a "sword of destiny" that could fix the producer's computer would have just as much personality), which is further dehumanizing.

i picked this one up from the library in the childrens' section, and i was ultimately disappointed because it was indeed a childrens' book. most all of the kids/ya stuff i've picked up in recent years has been marvelously mature, so finding it in the shorter shelves wasn't a deterrent at all. it started off great, right up through the part where Neef gets chased by the wild hunt...but then, everything got easy (i 100% agree with you Terrea). the story was quick and snappy, as was our heroine, but i think of the fairy realm as a much more perilous place. Neef kept saying everything was dangerous, but she got out of everything with nary a scratch.

Pamela, i was ok with the vague hypothesis of autism = fairy. we don't have a concrete cause of this disease worked out anyway (i'm a researcher). perhaps kids reading this and recognizing the symptoms in a classmate would be better primed to think of an autistic child's personality traits & outbursts as innate things about them, rather than blaming such a child with a "that kid is mean".

i really liked this book a whole lot - did anyone else get to read it?

just picked it up from the library today, to read on my upcoming plane trip!

ok, i know i'm resurrecting an abandoned thread here, but more than just 3 of us read this book, yes?

life has thrown a lot of lemons (+ lemonade-making supplies, but still) at me lately, and i've been up to my eyeballs in stuff and only just finished this book last night. i'm absolutely in love with it, and i'll probably pick up the 2nd one when i drop this one off at the library later today. i'm with Emilie, i want to know how that dark-eyelidded girl ends up!

in the hands of a less-gifted author, i think the russian-doll nested tale approach would have come off as gimmicky or forced; as it was, i found it fascinating and it helped make this book hard to put down. i love how some of the tales were clearly variants of old faves, and more of them were shiny new workings that sounded just as familar.

the ending of the 2nd tale was a bit clunky - i prefer my feminism to be shown by example rather than monologued - but then it was all redeemed by the very last sentence. i think we could have a discussion for days on why, exactly, we thought dinrizhad (spelling off, i'm quite sure) was crying in bed.

ugh, i'm so late & far behind - the local library didn't have the book and had to acquire it from elsewhere in the county. i've thusfar read only the first over-tale (the prince & the goose), and so far, this book is amazing. the russian nested-dolls approach to tale telling is extremely engaging, and makes it really hard to put down.

Emilie, i'm with you in that this definitely has the rhythm and flow to it that makes you want to read it out loud.

Claire, is the 2nd book a continuation? i.e., will i need to be up on the entwined characters to get the most out of it?