Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 44

S&S Read-Along: Ch. 49 & 50

Here we are!  All done! 

Whew.  All's well that ends well.  I'm sorry if you were expecting a big, romantic proposal scene, but Austen tends not to indulge in those.  She's more interested in the overall relationships of the characters with each other, I think, and not just here for the kissy stuff.  For which I am very appreciative, overall.  I'm not a big fan of the kissy stuff either.
Anyway, I chuckled a lot over these last two chapters.  Austen gets pretty feisty, doesn't she?  Poking fun at ...

S&S Read-Along: Ch. 47 & 48

So Much Suspense!  I don't know about you, but I really didn't want to stop reading at the end of chapter 48, so I am going to try to post this quick, read the last two chapters, and post about them today too.  Because yikes, the end of 48 is a wretched place to stop.

I love this line about Elinor's thinking process:  "Reflection had given a calmness to her judgment, and sobered her opinion of Willoughby's deserts" (p. 650).  Not only is it important not to make snap judgments, but it's also impo...

"The Lady and the Lionheart" by Joanne Bischof

I'm glad I read this book for two reasons.

One, it's shown me several pitfalls NOT to stumble into with my own Beauty and the Beast retelling, which I'm currently writing the first draft of.  Such as, if your 'beast' is going to have some kind of physical 'otherness' that is supposed to be shocking and off-putting... make it something that actually would be shocking and off-putting. 

Two, it hammered home the fact that Research Really Matters.  A lot.  And getting lazy with your research is not ok...

S&S Read-Along: Ch. 45 & 46

We only have four chapters left after this!  Only two more posts!  Oh my goodness.  Well, I suppose I should mention right now that I'll be holding a small giveaway when we finish this, with Austen-inspired goodies and so on.  Just in case you need something to look forward to ;-)

Right, so, on to the chapters at hand.  Elinor is clearly a better person than I am.  She is way more willing to think of good things to remember about Willoughby than I would be.  So, um, good for her.
I do get a little...

"The Last Fire-Eater" by Charity Bishop

I was fairly convinced through almost this whole book that history wasn't going to let Charity Bishop give the couple at the center of this story a happy ending, and I was kinda mad about that.  Because I got attached to the title character very quickly, and I needed a happy ending for her.  Needed it, I say!  
Lambert Simnel, titular character of The Queen's Falconer (the previous book in the Tudor Throne series), gradually falls in love with Davina, a young woman who knows the secrets of fire e...

S&S Read-Along: Ch. 43 & 44

But wait!  There's more!  Now, in the space of only two chapters, you can get a near-deadly illness AND a visit from a self-absorbed ex-lover!  All for the low, low price of learning to understand your actions and the people around you.  Act now, Marianne, before these opportunities are gone for good!
Um, so, yeah.  Exciting times in these two chapters, eh?  First, Marianne almost succumbs to a terrible fever, which Mrs. Jennings suspects is a "putrid" fever.  My annotated copy says that means sh...

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll

Well, I've discovered that, like The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, this book is pretty fun to read out loud, even though if I read it silently to myself, it annoys me.  So I did enjoy reading this aloud to my kids over a couple weeks, mostly because I got to do lots of silly voices.  Though, by the end, I was running out of new silly voices for all the characters!  So, yeah, that was an interesting challenge, and did make it fun for me.

But, on a whole, this book is very silly and nonsensical and I...

S&S Read-Along: Ch. 41 & 42

And now, for something completely different:  Lucy says nice things to and about Elinor!  And then reverts to being conniving and greedy, secretly planning to mooch milk and eggs off Colonel Brandon's estate once she and Edward are married and living near him.  Pardon me while I roll my eyes very far back into my head like a twelve-year-old.

I had to chuckle over John Dashwood saying, "I am convinced that there is a vast deal of inconsistency in almost every human character (p. 548).  Um, yeah, w...

S&S Read-Along: Ch. 39 & 40

Well, finally!  Something goes right for somebody!  Isn't Colonel Brandon just the sweetest, most thoughtful man?  Offering this "living" to Edward, whom he barely knows, simply because he sympathizes with the injustice of parents interfering in the love lives of their children.  Of course, Brandon has no way of knowing that he's actually hurting his friend Elinor by this, because now Edward will be able to marry Lucy instead of putting off the marriage because of insufficient money to support a...

S&S Read-Along: Ch. 37 & 38

And so, the secret is out.  Finally.  Anyone else breathing a huge sigh of relief on behalf of Elinor because she doesn't have this awful secret hanging over her head anymore?  Whew.  Even though it means Edward is firmly and publicly engaged to Lucy Steele now, which is sad for both Elinor and Edward, it's just... got to be a big relief to have it known.
Random note:  the "Nancy" they keep mentioning is the elder Miss Steele, the one with the fixation on some doctor.  Her first name is Anne, but...