C.A. Gray's Blog, page 62
April 3, 2019
Review of Scarlet
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I liked this much better the second time! That might be because it benefitted from the context of all the rest of the books in the Lunar Chronicles, which I LOVE. My favorite part of this book were still the scenes involving Cinder, her new partner-in-crime Carswell Thorne (who is SUCH a fantastic caricature of the gorgeous, devil-may-care rascal), and now Emperor Kai, though.
I do admire the fact that all four of the heroines of this series are so different, though. Cinder is the most traditional female heroine: smart, sarcastic, unsure of herself, girl-next-door (who just happens to turn out to be a long lost princess). Scarlet is an assertive, gorgeous badass who takes matters into her own hands, both when it comes to hunting for her missing grandmother, and also in her attraction to Wolf. She’s likable, but it’s hard to identify with a character like hers. It’s also hard to identify with her attraction to Wolf, a Lunar special operative whose DNA has been blended with that of a wolf to give him both animal instincts and animal characteristics. But, since Meyer wanted to use the fairy tale as a jumping off point, and if Wolf was going to be both the love interest and the villain (sort of), Scarlet kind of had to be who she is to make it work.
I do really like how Scarlet’s and Cinder’s stories intersect though! That took some serious narrative skill!
My rating: ****
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March 27, 2019
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
This week’s podcast review comes from this blog post Review of Cinder.
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March 25, 2019
Review of Cinder
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It’s my second time through the Lunar Chronicles, and I’m excited to re-experience it! This time I’m listening more like an author than a reader, considering each of Marissa Meyer’s choices. I think it’s ingenious that she interwove fairy tales into what was otherwise a wholly original plot in and of itself. It takes place in a futuristic, post-WWVI New Beijing, so there are a lot of Asian influences. Some “futuristic” aspects involve technology (Cinder, for instance, is a cyborg), but the whimsical narrative voice and the concept of a Lunar society makes it feel far more fantasy than sci-fi. Meyer borrowed some mythology of fairies for the Lunars, in that they can “glamour” people around them, bending them to their will–or merely changing their thoughts and perceptions. Oh, and there’s also a worldwide pandemic going on: the Letumosis plague, which (it turns out) was introduced to Earth by the Lunars. They are therefore immune, and use that as a political bargaining chip.
With all that going on, the addition of a fairy tale retelling hardly seems necessary… and yet, I LOVE that aspect. It takes what would otherwise be one more dystopian novel, and adds that much more romance–even though the actual romance between Cinder and Prince Kai gets very little “screen” time. Their chemistry is so fantastic, though! Cinder is not the beautiful servant, or at least we hear almost nothing about her beauty. She’s dirty and covered in grease stains, and Kai meets her like that–and doesn’t care. He’s lonely himself, since his father is dying of Letumosis, and he’ll soon be emperor, long before he’s ready. He’ll find himself attempting to manage a worldwide pandemic, and avert war with Luna if he can, even though Queen Levana of Luna’s terms for peace require a marriage alliance. With him. While I think it would stretch belief for a spoiled prince in peacetime to cast a lowly mechanic a second look (even if he doesn’t yet know she’s cyborg), in Kai’s position it makes sense. He needs a friend, a girl he can actually talk to, who doesn’t fall all over herself in his presence like all the rest. He’s not the pillar of strength that the prince in Cinderella stories usually is. He’s also a sympathetic character. You really root for both of them.
My one complaint is how horribly Cinder humiliates herself at the ball–and she *has* to, I get that. It just made me cringe! I don’t even think I could have stood to write that scene, in Meyer’s place.
I’m plowing through the rest of the series the second time around. If you haven’t already read this one, HIGHLY recommended!!!
My rating: *****
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March 22, 2019
Emma by Jane Austen
Today’s podcast review comes from this blog review of Emma by Jane Austen.
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March 19, 2019
Review of Emma
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It’s only been a few years since the last time I read “Emma,” but I couldn’t resist this Audible dramatization, narrated by Emma Thompson and performed with a semi-full cast (though I think there were only two others involved: another man and woman performed all the male and female characters). It might have been my favorite experience of the story yet. There were even sound effects, like chirping birds and the dull roar of a crowd, that made it seem more like watching a movie than listening to an audiobook.
My ONE complaint about this story is how Jane Austen glosses over the actual climax in narration rather than in dialogue. We’ve just invested an entire novel in this story, let us experience the fulfillment of it! Her editor, if she had one, totally should have caught that. Otherwise, it’s a thoroughly engaging story, even if it does follow the template of most of Austen’s tales — the unlikely suitor, the “red herring” suitor who inspires jealousy, the silly characters filled with inappropriate self-importance. It’s just so much fun.
My rating: *****
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March 15, 2019
The Beantown Girls by Jane Healey
Today’s podcast comes from this blog review of The Beantown Girls.
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March 11, 2019
Review of The Beantown Girls
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This book reminds me of Jane Austen somehow, even though it’s set in England and Europe during WWII. It’s action-packed, but it’s still primarily relational, creating a microcosm world all its own that could not have existed under any other circumstances. It’s a bit like college, but with much higher stakes: everybody is single and beautiful and flirting with each other, and “real” life takes a pause, because they’re all swept up into something much bigger than themselves.
The story follows three Red Cross Clubmobile girls from WWII, but primarily Fiona Denning, 25 years old and engaged to Danny, who went missing in Germany. She joins the Red Cross with her friends in order to find out whatever she can about his fate. But along the way, she has a myriad of adventures of her own, starting out in England and eventually earning enough respect from the “top brass” to get sent to the front lines. It’s endearing how deeply she loves her friends Dottie and Viv; how they soften toward the young soldiers and come to view most of them as little brothers and cousins, and how each of the three girls finds her own unlikely chance at love amid the devastation and uncertainty of war.
It reads like a novel, not like history, and there are a few dead giveaways that render it predictable: the “meet cute” for each of the three girls’ love interests is SO obvious, and the story could really only end one way for a “happily ever after”. There are moments of sadness, but it still gets wrapped up with a nice bow on top by the end — a little too perfect for reality. But fun nevertheless!
My rating: *****
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March 8, 2019
The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury, by Marc Levy
Today’s podcast comes from this blog review of The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury
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March 6, 2019
Review of The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury
This is the second book I’ve read by Marc Levy (the first was PS From Paris), and it probably won’t be the last! I guess I’d call the genre romance, but that’s only for lack of a better category. Maybe literary fiction is closer, because romance is certainly not the main focus throughout.
The story follows Alice, a 39-year old British woman from the 1950s just after the Blitz and the end of the war. She makes perfumes by trade, and lives next door to Doldry, a cantankerous painter who covets her flat because of her skylight. She’s known her group of mixed gender best friends from childhood. One night they go to a carnival, and one of her friends dares her to visit the fortune teller. The fortune teller informs her that the man who will be the most important in her life was walking right behind her that night, but she would have to meet six other men first, before she would find him–and the journey would take her to Istanbul, the city of her birth. Alice scoffs, knowing for certain that she is a British citizen–but she can’t get the idea out of her mind.
As she mulls this over, she develops an unlikely friendship with Doldry, the painter next door. He comes into an inheritance, and decides to take Alice to Istanbul on a quest for the man of her dreams… intending to leave her there and use her flat while she’s gone.
It’s an odd, delightful, circuitous, and unexpected story. I wouldn’t call it a romance, mostly because for most of the book I didn’t know who the romantic hero would be. Much of it centers on the mystery of Alice’s birth, though she does have a few romantic semi-entanglements along the way. But the ending is satisfying and sweet.
My rating: ****
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March 1, 2019
Whisper Falls, by Elizabeth Langston
Today’s podcast review comes from this blog post, Whisper Falls by Elizabeth Langston.
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