C.A. Gray's Blog, page 40

Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

Today’s podcast review comes from this blog post of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. 

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Review of The Ciphers of Muirwood

Still loving this series! Like all Wheeler’s series, it’s very episodic, but that serves to make it feel more like I’m actually in his world. As always, my review will have to contain spoilers–when stories as as episodic as this, I don’t know how else to describe them but by stating what happens.

Maia’s saga continues, still with shades of Cinderella. She lives permanently at an abbey where she studies to take the Maston test, and she’s assigned a companion named Suzenne, though I didn’t exactly follow the purpose of the companion other than to keep her from being too lonely. She’s otherwise shunned by the other learners in the abbey, presumably from envy. She longs for her husband Collier/King Gideon, whom she’s left behind, and who believes she betrayed him. She aids in Suzenne’s romance, and is forced to watch, heartsick, as she and Dodd enjoy what Maia never can with Collier. My favorite part of the story is when Gideon turns up at the abbey in disguise, and they have the opportunity to at least attempt to mend their differences.

Time passes, and the abbey is first visited by Maia’s evil stepmother and stepsisters (who vie for King Gideon’s affections). He makes a spectacle of choosing Maia over them before revealing their secret marriage. Maia’s father the king (of another realm), who first divorced her mother on shaky grounds and has now tired of her stepmother as well. When in power, the stepmother sentenced many of her enemies to beheading, but there are rumors that now that she is out of favor, she may suffer the same fate.

Maia’s father then descends upon the abbey too. It has been prophesied that Maia will open the apse veil (which seems to be the veil between the living and the dead) in order to protect the abbey, and she eventually does so, bringing back central characters from an earlier series in this universe, Maia’s own ancestors. In the process, Collier/Gideon, who had no interest in the Medium whatsoever, becomes a believer, and also declares that even though he never had any intention of loving Maia when he coerced her into marriage, he finds that he does anyway.

The stepmother meanwhile, with shades of Ann Boleyn, is sentenced to beheading after all. Despite how horribly she once treated Maia, Maia attempts to use what influence she has to save her. I do love how the messages of values like forgiveness and repentance lace through Wheeler’s stories.

My rating: *****

Language: none

Violence: none

Sexual content: none

Political content: none

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Review of Mansfield Park

I tried to read this one for the second time, and finally managed to make it all the way through, but I definitely see why I struggled the first time though. Since I was listening to the audio version (and I’m usually multitasking at the time) I actually had to stop about an hour or so in, and read a summary of what I’d listened to thus far: it was that boring. The summary definitely helped, though.

This was the gist: Fanny is taken in by her aunt and uncle, who don’t think very much of her. She falls in love with her cousin Edmund, but he thinks of her as a sister. She is (like all Austin’s heroines) quiet and serious, and with the help of a contrived play in which Edmund and a flashy, flighty neighbor named Mary are cast as lovers, Edmund decides that Mary is the woman of his dreams and proceeds to ascribe to her all the wonderful qualities that she in truth lacks, and Fanny really possesses. Meanwhile, Mary’s brother Henry, equally dashing and vapid, at first decides he will make a game of getting Fanny to fall for him, but then he actually does seem to fall in love with her himself. Everyone pressures Fanny to accept him, but even though it appears for all the world that Edmund is already lost to her forever, she cannot betray her own heart–and besides, despite appearances, she doesn’t trust Henry.

Almost the entire novel is wrapped up in Edmund’s romance with Mary and final discovery of her true nature, while Fanny is ultimately proved right about Henry as he finds himself embroiled in a scandal. I was stunned when I reached the last few minutes of the book, and (spoiler alert) Edmund still had not fallen in love with Fanny. In fact, the event occurs in the span of one sentence, pretty much. The entire book sets us up for an event we never get to see at all! Definitely Jane Austen’s worst book in my opinion.

My rating: **

Language: none

Violence: none

Sexual content: none

Politcal content: none

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The Molecule of More: Daniel Lieberman

Today’s podcast comes from this blog review of The Molecule of More. 

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Path of Secrets, Kenley Davidson

Today’s podcast comes from this blog review of Path of Secrets. 

Check out this episode!

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Review of A Study in Charlotte

I absolutely loved this! I’m in some ways a big Sherlock Holmes fan (I loved the Cumberbatch version, and in general I love the characters of Holmes and Watson as portrayed in film, though I find the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories painfully dry). Rather than yet another retelling, though, this one had a very unique YA twist: in this world, Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty all married and had children many generations earlier, and now each have robust family trees who are quite familiar with the original stories (which, in this world, were actually written by Watson). Jamie Watson grew up hearing about Charlotte Holmes, the descendant nearest his own age, and spent much of his life fantasizing about what it would be like for the two of them to recreate the adventures of their forefathers together. By what seems to be happenstance at the time, he finds himself at an American boarding school with her. But she devastates his expectations when she appears to loathe him at first sight. There is only one person whom she loathes more than Jamie, though: a boy who attacks her honor, provoking Jamie to defend her. Then, he turns up dead–and the two of them are the prime suspects. So of course, they have to work together to solve the case.

I absolutely loved the dynamic between Holmes and Watson (as they call one another): it’s exactly what the original duo would have been, with sexual tension involved. Charlotte is just as compelling a character as Sherlock, and it’s only because we see her through Jamie’s eyes that all her sharp edges somehow become endearing. We love her because he loves her, though he never says it in so many words. It’s all the better because he doesn’t. The story takes another twist when the Moriartys enter in, as of course they must. There’s lots of intrigue, action and adventure, mystery, and a twisted coming-of-age romance that also happens to involve oxycontin addiction (on Holmes’s part). I probably would have taken issue with the way this is portrayed, except that it’s true to the original: Sherlock was supposed to have a drug problem too, which is quite believable given the extremes of his (and Charlotte’s) characters.

It’s rare that an e-book captures my attention enough to even finish it, let alone race through it as I did this one. It’s also rare that I’ll overlook the occasional f-bomb these days–I actually almost stopped reading early on because I thought the cussing would become intolerable. But it’s maybe one word every chapter or so, which I found I could more or less overlook. There are a few graphic sexual allusions too, but nothing that actually occurs on the pages of the story.

My rating: *****

Language: present; barely tolerable IMO

Sexual content: alluded to but not actually in the story

Violence: present but not over the top

Political content: none that I recall

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Review of The Molecule of More

Really fascinating! I rarely review nonfiction here, but I’ll make an exception for this one.

I already had a framework for the concepts, so that made it much easier to listen to as an audiobook. What I knew already was that dopamine was associated with pleasure and reward, and the lack of it (and its downstream metabolites, norepinephrine and epinephrine) with a particular kind of depression: the kind that lacks excitement or interest. It’s also the neurotransmitter associated with focus; in excess, it can lead to schizophrenia, and in deficit, it can lead to Parkinson’s Disease.

What I did not know was the distinction between dopamine and the other catecholamines, norepi and epi: Lieberman categorizes the latter two, along with things like serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins, as “here and now,” or H&N neurotransmitters, meaning they help with enjoyment of the moment and satisfaction in one’s actual experience. By contrast, dopamine is all about novelty and desire. The moment that a pleasure is no longer unexpected, or a goal is achieved, dopamine is quenched. The enjoyment associated with expected pleasures or enjoying what one already possesses requires the H&N neurotransmitters–and certain kinds of people are predisposed more toward one over the other. The highest achievers in history tend to be very dopamine dominant, with all its attendant benefits and pitfalls. They are constantly driven, and usually obsessed with achievement and efficiency–but this also means they are rarely “happy”, where happiness is defined by satisfaction with what they actually have. Many of them are more susceptible to affairs and divorce, because for them, it’s more about the thrill of the chase than the actual relationship. They often care for humanity in the abstract, but have little patience with individual people. But on the plus side, they also are quite resilient to adversity and change, since novelty produces the dopamine spike they crave.

On the flip side, those more predisposed genetically to the H&N neurotransmitters tend to be happier and more content, and to have stronger interpersonal relationships, but far less driven to achievement and less resilient to the stress of change. I particularly found the political discussion interesting: those predisposed to dopamine dominance were more often liberal or progressive, while those with more of the H&N neurotransmitters tended to be more conservative. I thought the book did a good job of staying neutral on this point, and showing the pluses and minuses of each. For instance, it took for granted that both sides wanted to help the poor, but they went about it differently. While liberals want to legislate that the government should provide for them financially, seeing this as the most efficient way to achieve their goal, conservatives are against government entitlements, but statistically give far more of their own money to charities. While both sides sympathize with the plight of immigrants, liberals will show it by arguing for an open border, yet implement strict zoning laws as a boundary against their own places of residence–while conservatives will argue for stricter immigration policy, but will be more likely to actively serve the refugee community once they’re here.

I also thought the discussion of schizophrenia was fascinating. I knew it was dopamine-driven, but never thought about the mechanics behind this. Whenever we hear a salient point, something that we find interesting, a dopamine spike allows us to remember it. Those with very high dopamine levels will have a dopamine spike at seemingly random times, and their brains will then weave a story to explain how these seemingly unrelated pieces of information might be connected (and particularly how they might be connected to them personally, since we all consider the most salient information to be that which concerns ourselves). The process almost sounds like a waking dream.

Overall, a very interesting read, well worth it.

My rating: *****

Political content: present but balanced

Sexual content: present but clinical 

Language: none

Violence: none

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The Banished of Muirwood, Jeff Wheeler

Today’s podcast comes from this blog review of The Banished of Muirwood by Jeff Wheeler. 

Check out this episode!

The post The Banished of Muirwood, Jeff Wheeler appeared first on C.A. Gray.

Persuasion, by Jane Austen

Today’s podcast comes from this blog review of Persuasion by Jane Austen. 

Check out this episode!

The post Persuasion, by Jane Austen appeared first on C.A. Gray.

Review of Path of Secrets

This whole series is like the literary equivalent of a bowl of pasta — empty calories, but tasty comfort food nonetheless. It’s got a little bit of everything: adventure, magic, romance, intrigue, and a sappy happily-ever-after.

This one was a very loose retelling of Little Red Riding Hood… but since that story is actually quite short, the author had a lot of gaps to fill in. The role of Red Riding Hood is played by Batrice, a sarcastic former actress who thinks she’d like to become a spy for the Andari crown. But before she can do so, a letter from her hypochondriacal grandmother diverts her course, demanding that she come and attend the old lady’s bedside before her demise. Batrice cannot understand why her spy mentor not only sends her, but sends her with two guards who behave quite strangely, with a basket containing a poorly behaved puppy, and with an aspiring novelist who pretends to be her maid. Along the way, they encounter an injured traveler whom they take in, multiple small personal items go missing, the carriage is vandalized, and Batrice  wonders what’s really going on. The mysterious injured traveler, Jamie, becomes the love interest–but is he also the “wolf”? (At least that’s what I was wondering for most of the book.)

The climax of every book in this series is always a little chaotic and topsy-turvy, with reveals coming so fast and furious that I’m not sure if Davidson planted seeds for them earlier in the story, or if she’s just making up whatever comes into her head at the time. This book’s climax was even more that way than most, introducing an entire conspiracy and characters of whom Batrice was entirely ignorant. But I didn’t really mind, because I wasn’t all that invested in the mystery anyway. While I enjoyed every book in this series, I also never felt that I couldn’t put it down or had to know what happened next. They’re great for light bedtime reading.

My rating: ***1/2

Language: none

Violence: none to speak of

Sexual content: none

Political content: none

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