I adore classic children’s books. I’ve inhaled them since my mom taught me to read when I was four. If I could get my hands on it, I read it. A LittleI adore classic children’s books. I’ve inhaled them since my mom taught me to read when I was four. If I could get my hands on it, I read it. A Little Princess, The Boxcar Children, Heidi, The Secret Garden, A Wrinkle in Time, The Chronicles of Narnia, Gulliver’s Travels, and The Swiss Family Robinson were all early favorites. And yet, a lot of others slipped through the cracks of my childhood without my having met them. There are too many wonderful stories in the world to ever hope to read them all. But I’m slowly trying to cover all the ground I can. For instance, I didn’t meet Anne Shirley of Green Gables, or Laura Ingalls from the Little House on the Prairie, until I was an adult. Yet I loved them no less for the belated introductions. I can now add Elizabeth Ann to the roster.
I’ve seen the title Understood Betsy plenty of times. A copy has even resided on my bookshelf for a few years. But I can’t say the premise ever really drew me in. For some reason I decided on a whim to pick this up, and I couldn’t have been more surprised and delighted. The surface premise isn’t exactly unique; a pampered, coddled city girl finds herself forced to live with a country branch of her family for whatever reason. But the telling of the story in this case was wonderful. Something in the writing style was just pure magic, a joy to read alone and surely an even greater one to read aloud. The cadence of prose lilts and meanders beautifully The personality of the near-omniscient narrator shines through and adds an extra element of fun and charm to the story. And the love the dreaded “Putney cousins” feel for Betsy, as they call her, just blazes from the page. Life on their farm is quaint and cozy. And the way Betsy grows and blossoms over the course of her story is truly lovely.
Understood Betsy is one of those rare perfect books. There’s not a single thing about it I would change, unless it was to give it a sequel, just so I could have more time with Betsy and Cousin Ann and Aunt Abigail and Uncle Henry. This is a book that anyone could love, no matter their age, and it’s one that I definitely plan to reread often....more
The Gifts was recommended for lovers of The Essex Serpent, which I adored last year. While I can definitely understand where such comparisons could beThe Gifts was recommended for lovers of The Essex Serpent, which I adored last year. While I can definitely understand where such comparisons could be drawn, this book didn’t live up to The Essex Serpent, in my opinion. And because that’s what drew me to the book to begin with, I found myself a bit disappointed in it, though it wasn’t at all a bad story.
The elements of The Essex Serpent that made it so great were the thoughtful prose, the philosophical and religious ponderings, and the possible supernatural event at the heart of the story that never resolved itself. I loved the epistolary portions of the book, as well as the romantic tension. It was a slow, meandering tale that captivated me, giving a lot of food for thought without providing clear-cut answers. The setting was dark and moody and vaguely gothic, and I loved exploring it through the lens of a naturalist, as our main character viewed herself. That setting, combined with the potential presence of a supernatural element, are the main similarities between The Essex Serpentt and The Gifts. But where the former fostered deep thought and never answered the question of whether the supernatural was truly present or not, the latter was more plot-driven, and the supernatural was unquestionably present. Some important topics, like race and gender and religion, are touched on in The Gifts, but are not delved into in any meaningful way.
The Gifts is woven primarily from five main perspectives, four of whom are talented women in their fields. But as this takes place in England in the 1840s, those talents are not encouraged or even acknowledged by the majority of their male counterparts. The fifth common perspective is that of a male surgeon, and I found him absolutely despicable. As I was meant to. I could tell he was meant to be more nuanced than I read him, but I found him fairly unredeemable. I found the female perspectives interesting, but none of them ever fully won me over emotionally. And because we knew with certainty what was happening in certain perspectives, the use of these same events as mysteries to be solved by other perspective characters felt tiresome. There were decisions made that had me rolling my eyes, and events that felt entirely to convenient in terms of timing. Even had the central supernatural core of the story been removed, I would have still found the plot and timing unbelievable.
There were things I enjoyed about this book. While it took me a while to warm up to it, the storytelling was fairly compelling. The world was well fleshed out and believably rendered. There was a small romantic side plot that was sweet, and a pretty satisfying ending. However, I think I would have enjoyed this book more had I not heard it compared to The Essex Serpent. But if you’re a fan of historical fiction and are looking for something darker with an element of magical realism, I think you might enjoy The Gifts very much....more
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