Claire's review

The Mists of Avalon
by Marion Zimmer Bradley

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/402045.The_Mists_of_Avalon?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Mists of Avalon" border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51n8B4RrYOL._SL160_.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/402045.The_Mists_of_Avalon?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Mists of Avalon</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11359.Marion_Zimmer_Bradley">Marion Zimmer Bradley</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/328066?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars You have to be a particular kind of girl to fall in love with this book the way I did.
 
 --You have to be in the sixth grade, a freakishly precocious reader, whose beloved sixth-grade teacher brings a box of her ten favorite books to class and sets them up on the chalkboard and leaves them there for weeks for you to look at, including one HUGE book that looks like it's a billion pages long with some cool fairy priestess chick on a horse on the cover.
 
 --You have to have grown up reading King Arthur stories and LOVE the movie "The Sword In the Stone."
 
 --You have to be so hopelessly nerdy that you would rather sit on the side of the playground reading than play kickball, never mind how much the other kids make fun of you about it.
 
 --You have to be Catholic enough to understand the mentality of the occasionally hateful Christian characters in the book (as well as to be baffled and perplexed by all the sexuality which will make a number of plot elements only make sense to you when you re-read the book as a college student and go, "Ohhhhh. Now I get it").
 
 --You have to be the kind of girl who loves and relates to the plain outcast Morgaine who is treated as a freak has to learn how to rely on herself alone. 
 
 --You have to hate the shallow blonde princesses, even when they seem like they might be kind of nice people, and always root for the feisty brunette. 
 
 --You have to be a fantasy geek who LOVES any book with swordfighting, magic, princesses, and doomed romance. 
 
 --You have to be patient enough to read 800+ pages that cover one woman's entire lifetime from before her birth to old, old age.
 
 --You have to come to the end of the book and secretly wish that (despite your religious conviction in your Catholic upbringing) Britain had never been Christianized and we were all still witches. 
 
 --You have to secretly wish you belonged to a mystical female cult where you had to have a blue crescent moon tattooed on your forehead.
 
 --You have to wish you knew how to ride a horse in a dress and look majestic, instead of falling off every time you were forced onto a horse at camp or on vacation and now you hate them and they scare you. 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31973?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Claire's review
rating:

bookshelves: books-i-loved-in-high-school, books-with-swordfighting-in-them, elves-witches-vampires-and-the-like, five-stars, top-25-of-all-time

You have to be a particular kind of girl to fall in love with this book the way I did.

--You have to be in the sixth grade, a freakishly precocious reader, whose beloved sixth-grade teacher brings a box of her ten favorite books to class and sets them up on the chalkboard and leaves them there for weeks for you to look at, including one HUGE book that looks like it's a billion pages long with some cool fairy priestess chick on a horse on the cover.

--You have to have grown up reading King Arthur stories and LOVE the movie "The Sword In the Stone."

--You have to be so hopelessly nerdy that you would rather sit on the side of the playground reading than play kickball, never mind how much the other kids make fun of you about it.

--You have to be Catholic enough to understand the mentality of the occasionally hateful Christian characters in the book (as well as to be baffled and perplexed by all the sexuality which will make a number of plot elements only make sense t...more You have to be a particular kind of girl to fall in love with this book the way I did.

--You have to be in the sixth grade, a freakishly precocious reader, whose beloved sixth-grade teacher brings a box of her ten favorite books to class and sets them up on the chalkboard and leaves them there for weeks for you to look at, including one HUGE book that looks like it's a billion pages long with some cool fairy priestess chick on a horse on the cover.

--You have to have grown up reading King Arthur stories and LOVE the movie "The Sword In the Stone."

--You have to be so hopelessly nerdy that you would rather sit on the side of the playground reading than play kickball, never mind how much the other kids make fun of you about it.

--You have to be Catholic enough to understand the mentality of the occasionally hateful Christian characters in the book (as well as to be baffled and perplexed by all the sexuality which will make a number of plot elements only make sense to you when you re-read the book as a college student and go, "Ohhhhh. Now I get it").

--You have to be the kind of girl who loves and relates to the plain outcast Morgaine who is treated as a freak has to learn how to rely on herself alone.

--You have to hate the shallow blonde princesses, even when they seem like they might be kind of nice people, and always root for the feisty brunette.

--You have to be a fantasy geek who LOVES any book with swordfighting, magic, princesses, and doomed romance.

--You have to be patient enough to read 800+ pages that cover one woman's entire lifetime from before her birth to old, old age.

--You have to come to the end of the book and secretly wish that (despite your religious conviction in your Catholic upbringing) Britain had never been Christianized and we were all still witches.

--You have to secretly wish you belonged to a mystical female cult where you had to have a blue crescent moon tattooed on your forehead.

--You have to wish you knew how to ride a horse in a dress and look majestic, instead of falling off every time you were forced onto a horse at camp or on vacation and now you hate them and they scare you. ...less

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message 1: by Violet (last edited 12/30/2007 02:13PM)

12/30/2007 02:12PM

i have to say that sounds a lot like me. i don't even like kickball, i'm hopelessy nerdy, i love fantasy, i'm a 7th grade "precocious" reader (not sure if that's the exact term for me, but i'm bookworm-ish enough) , and yes, my teacher did bring in a box of her favorite books.

P.S. : the last book i read was about 500 pages and i read it in one day, so 800 sounds about right