November MiniReviews – Part 1

So I find that I not-infrequently read books that I just feel rather “meh” about and they don’t seem worth writing an entire post about.  However, since I also use this blog as a sort of book-review diary, I like to at least say something.  So, inspired by the way that Stephanie reviews the unreviewed every month, I think that some months (or maybe all of them!) will get a post with minireviews of all those books that just didn’t get more than a few paragraphs of feelings from me.

This month I seem to already have accumulated quite a few middling books (or maybe I’m just feeling lazier about writing reviews!) so here is the first batch, and you can anticipate another before the end of the month!

Rose & Thorn by Sarah Prineas

//published 2016//

Uggghhh this is the sequel to Ash & Bramble, a book that gave me a lot of mixed feelings – and Rose & Thorn did the same.  In the end, I guess it’s a 2/5.  Once again, it’s more because of the overall tone/message of the book than it is because of the story itself, which is alright but fine.  But the message can be summed up from this paragraph on page 25:

“You and the Penwitch had a story together, didn’t you?  Some kind of adventure …  Something terrible, and also wonderful.  And after it you lived happily together?  Maybe you even had children, and you were a family.  But not forever.”  No, there was no ever-after.  Shoe had taught me that.  Even if the adventure ended, the story went on.

I think the reason that this book gave me a gag reflex wasn’t because of the concept that stories don’t really end, it’s the insistence that that means that there is, ultimately, no happiness to be found.  Even if you have it right now, that’s only going to be for a moment because it doesn’t last, love doesn’t last, you can never be together forever.  It was just super depressing, and also felt like it meant the whole story had no point.  Like, if you aren’t going to find happiness, what are you even fighting for?  The chance to choose your own misery?  That just didn’t seem inspiring to me.

I dragged through this book and didn’t really like it.  Thankfully it was in past tense, which was definitely an improvement.  However, the story itself had so many logical gaps that I just couldn’t buy it.  They started in the first chapter with the fact that we’re calling Owen “Shoe” after half the point of the last book was finding his true identity and giving him his name back.  It felt like the whole first book was kind of pointless also – which I suppose is true when all you’re trying to do is make sure people understand that if they have a happy ending, it’s because they are letting someone else write their story: happy endings don’t happen when we have the power to make our own stories.  BLEH.

The Ghost Rock Mystery by Mary C. Jane

//published 1956//

This is one of those happy little Scholastic Book Club books that they used to print back in the day and sell for 50¢.  I’ve accumulated a lot of them at book sales over the years.  While they aren’t super deep, they are fun for younger readers, and this one was no exception.  Janice and Tommy go to stay for the summer with their aunt Annabelle (a widow) and their cousin Hubert.  Aunt Annabelle has just purchased an old house in upstate Maine that she is renting as a hotel/bed & breakfast, but many of the locals believe that it’s haunted, and she is having trouble getting guests to stay.

The kids solve the mystery, and all is well in the end – even Aunt Annabelle finds new love with her hunky neighbor who works for the Border Patrol.

It was interesting to read a book that involved illegal immigration, but written about back in the day when it was a much more cut-and-dried issue than it has been made into during modern times.  At one point, one of the kids asks the Border Patrolman why the illegal immigrants can’t come into the country.

“Many of them could,” Mr. Grant replied, “if they would go about it as they are supposed to do.  If they sneak in, we never know how many men among the ordinary laborers may be dangerous enemies who are using this as a way to get into the United States.”

I just find it interesting that in our current culture, if anyone says that they don’t believe that illegal immigrants should be immediately granted citizen-level rights, it’s because we’re racist and cruel – no one seems to consider that perhaps it is simply unfair to the thousands of people who are trying to enter the country legally, by following the rules – and that those rules have been created for the safety of everyone already living here.

Anyway.  A fine little book, although nothing out of the ordinary.

Wait for What Will Come by Barbara Michaels

//published 1978//

Another 3/5 so-so read from Michaels.  I’ve almost given up on her, despite my unfailing love for the Amelia Peabody series.  The Vicky Bliss series was pretty meh, and so have the independent novels of hers that I’ve read – and there have been quite a few that I’ve gotten from the library and then sent back because they just didn’t capture me.

Wait for What Will Come had a fairly intriguing story, with Carla returning (from America) to her family’s old home in Cornwall.  She meets like five guys, all super hot and available, within 24 hours of her arrival, though, so I was already doubting the credibility of the entire story.  But despite being ardently pursued by basically all of them, Carla is no missish heroine.  Even though her crazy housekeeper keeps telling Carla about the curse on her family that will strike if Carla stays until Mid-Summer’s Eve, Carla refuses to be bullied out of the home she is growing to love.

Overall, it wasn’t that bad of a book, and much of the adventure kept me avidly turning pages.  However, the ending felt very rushed – I even had to go back and read a few pages to make sure I understood exactly what was happening. While plausible, it wasn’t necessarily a natural ending.

Tales of St. Austin’s by P.G. Wodehouse

//published 1903//

Another one of Wodehouse’s very early works, this book is a collection of short stories that all take place at a boys’ school called St. Austin’s.  As with most short story collections, there were some that were quite funny and others that fell a bit short of the mark (mostly due to cricket).

On the whole, while Wodehouse’s school stories aren’t terrible reading, they aren’t thoroughly engaging, either.  St. Austin’s was basically forgettable.  While worth a one-time read, it isn’t one that I see myself returning to time and again.

 

Black Rainbow // by Barbara Michaels

Okay, so quite a while back I read (and loved) the Amelia Peabody series, written by Michaels, whose actual name is Barbara Mertz, who wrote the Peabody series as Elizabeth Peters.  (Why, people.  Why so many names.  Please stop.)  Anyway, I went on to read Peters/Mertz’s Vicky Bliss series, which was also enjoyable but lacked the magic that made me love the Peabody books so much.  (Or maybe they just lacked Amelia Peabody.  I really love Amelia Peabody.)

Mertz also wrote several stand-alone novels, most of which were written as Barbara Michaels (many of which have Elizabeth Peters emblazoned on them, as though giving me someone’s other fake name is going to somehow help me keep them straight).

Prior to Black Rainbow, the only Michaels book I had read was Houses of Stone.  I’m sure that you all remember my engaging review of that book.  My main complaint about it was that it was mostly a treatise on how horrible women have had it throughout all the years.  According to the main character in Houses of Stone, there has never been a single woman born who had it better than a man.  Or something like that.  Frankly, I got super bored with her rantings and explanations about how all Gothic novels were written were just a cry for help from women, who wrote about being imprisoned because they were imprisoned (by men, of course) – emotionally, physically, mentally, etc.

And, let’s be honest, I wasn’t completely surprised, because both the Peabody and Bliss series had a strong feminist line to them.  However, I felt like the main characters of those two series were reasonable.  They realized that they still had the brains and wherewithal to do something with the their lives, especially if they spent less time whining about their (hypothetical) disadvantages, and more time actually doing.  Still.  Houses of Stone was a downer, but I went in hoping for better from Black Rainbow.  Because I still liked the story in Houses (when Michaels deigned to pause the lecture and grace us with a bit of plot).  Plus, I know Michaels can write a solid, engaging tale when she wants to – there are nineteen Peabody books, and while I’m not going to say that they are all 5-star reads, they were, on the whole, pretty darn good.

//published 1982//

Enough rambling.  On to Black Rainbow.  This novel is set in the 1800’s and is about a young woman who has been hired as a governess.  She is broke and all alone in the world.  We first meet Megan as she walks from the station to her new home, Grayhaven Manor.  Ominously, as the storm clouds part, a black rainbow appears over the estate.  Megan is seized with a superstitious fear, which she of course represses and continues on her way.

Megan, we find out, has been employed as a governess for the ward of a random fellow she met in London.  Megan has quite the crush on her employer, the young and handsome Edmund Mandeville, even though she knows basically nothing about him except he is young, handsome, and owns an estate called Grayhaven Manor. (Oh, and he has a ward.)  Megan’s obsession with Edmund, who doesn’t even appear for a few chapters, felt extremely weird, since Megan herself barely knows the guy.  Whatevs, as the kids say.

Heroine #2 is Jane, Edmund’s sister.  Jane has been running the estate in Edmund’s absence, as it turns out that he’s been away at war for a bit and while he was gone their dad kipped over, and Jane had to step up to the plate, running the estate and, more importantly, the mills that finance it.  Of course, this all works out because Jane is intelligent, kind, resourceful, decisive, far-seeing, a good listener, and any other quality you can think of that you wish your local mill owner had.

Edmund finally gets around to showing up, and he decides that because he is a MAN he should obviously be in charge, so poor Jane is stuck wandering aimlessly around the house wishing she had a job.  Edmund, who is a complete and total douche, struts around like a banty rooster, making all sorts of stupid decisions that adversely impact the lives of his employees and tenants.  He also decides to remodel the entire house, and he wants to sell the mill because real gentlemen aren’t involved in trade.  Edmund wants to come off as a real gentleman, because he is interested in winning the  hand of a real lady from a neighboring county.

Lady Georgina is obviously only interested in Edmund for his money.  She’s beautiful and an excellent horsewoman and is out of money.  She’s a total snob and all the servants hate her.  Basically, she’s Caroline Bingley.

The story went on and on and ON, and I use the word “story” loosely because there wasn’t much of one.  It was impossible for me to like Megan because anyone who is in love with Edmund is just plain stupid.  He has no redeeming qualities.  He’s a whiny, spoiled little twat who throws temper tantrums whenever things don’t go his way, and then acts all charming and flattery to win back people’s good opinions.  I couldn’t stand Edmund, and I couldn’t stand Megan for liking him.  Just.  Ugh.  No.  Please.  Edmund and Lady Georgina deserved each other.

Jane was much more likable, but she was really only there so Michaels could spend pages emphasizing how helpless Jane’s position was.  Poor Jane just has to do whatever Edmund says, because he’s a man and she’s a woman.  And, by the way, women are always the smart, kind ones, and men are always selfish jerks, so the reason that there are any problems in the world is because men make (bad, obviously) decisions and women just have to sit about wringing their hands.

Every now and then, something would happen to make the story pick up the pace a bit, and I would think Oh, good, a story!  except then it would just sort of fade away again.  The other problem to me was that the “mystery” aspect of the story wasn’t very mysterious, as it was quite obvious what was going on/what was going to go on, which added to the overall boredom of the read.

In the end, 2/5.  This was more or less readable, but I just didn’t like anybody.  The ending was solid(ish), but it just seemed completely and totally unreasonable to me that Megan would go through so much to win the affection of a total tool, and I got really tired of hearing how trapped and helpless Jane was, all due to her womanhood.  (Aside: Lady Georgina didn’t seem to have trouble with helplessness.  She went out and got shizznizz done.  She didn’t spend a whole lot of time hand wringing.)  The story was very predictable and not terribly exciting.  I’m still planning to check out more of Michaels’s work (actually, another of her books is on the TBR shelf as we speak), because I know she can write good ones!

Oh!  And that “black rainbow” thing?  Despite the fact that Michaels describes it as “palest silver-gray to a black deeper than the moonlit vault of the sky,” all I can seem to find is “moonbows,” which reflect from the light of the moon rather than the sun.  Still, they do use regular rainbow colors, just more muted than their daytime cousin.  I couldn’t find anything under black rainbow, but I am open to pictures/articles if anyone else has some??

Here’s a picture from this article about moonbows.  In fairness, the author says that to the human eye, they usually appear white or silver, but a time lapse brings out the colors.  Of course, everyone takes the pictures with the time lapse, so I can’t seem to locate a picture of what it would look like to a normal, mid-1800’s governess strolling the the dripping darkness towards her new home…

Houses of Stone // by Barbara Michaels

//published 1993//

So a while back I read the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters, and loved it.  I also read her Vicky Bliss series, which was also enjoyable but not quite as much fun.  Turns out, Peters is a pen name for Barbara Mertz, who also wrote books under her own name AND the pen name of Barbara Michaels!  Good times, good times.  Anyway, this is my first book to read under her Michael’s name.  While a decent outing, I simply didn’t like the main character, which left this book at an overall 3/5 for me.

Karen is an English professor whose specialty is 19th century female authors.  Her one claim to academic fame was finding and publishing a small volume of poetry by a women whose pen name was Ismene.  Karen has yearned to find out more about Ismene ever since, but without much hope – until her friend, a book dealer, discovers a partial manuscript that appears to have been written by the same woman.  Karen is wildly excited about the opportunity to get her hands on the manuscript and learn more about Ismene.  Unfortunately, some of her academic colleagues are pretty interested in the same thing.  As Karen continues to learn more about Ismene, the manuscript, and the house where the manuscript was found, she finds strange accidents and incidents are occurring with startling frequency.  Are they coincidence?  A product of Karen’s over-active imagination (filled with Ismene’s Gothic tale of horror)?  Or is there something more frighteningly supernatural occurring?

I had a few problems with this book.  The first is Karen herself.  UGH.  Frankly, she’s just a bit too bitchy for me.  Most of her dialogue is a constant refrain about how downtrodden women have been tormented by the restraints of the patriarchy for centuries, and it got pretty old pretty fast.

“[My nightmare is] the old buried-alive theme – a classic feminist nightmare.  I know what brings it on.  Frustration. …  The dreams started after I saw the manuscript.  Once I get my hands on it they’ll stop.”

Did you know?  Only feminists have nightmares about being buried alive.  It’s because they’re constantly thwarted in their professional, private, emotional, and social lives.  That was only the first mention of the theme – on page 41 – but it was repeated constantly.  Women are so downtrodden and desperate to be heard that the only way they can speak is through vague Freudian messages.  My gosh.  It was like sitting through a constant lecture on 19th century female authors.  I was even subjected to a speech on why Austen is an underground feminist whose only aim in writing was to point out what dirty dogs all (ALL) men are.

At one point, Karen is telling her friend about the actual story Ismene has written.  She is explaining how she is trying to figure out when the manuscript was written by reading for clues in the story.

“The original Gothic novel,” [said Karen], “began with The Castle of Otranto in 1764, and reached its height in the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe thirty years later.  They were certainly overburdened with dastardly villains and vapid heroines, ancient castles and Deadly Secrets; but the Gothic romance represents a significant development in the history of the modern novel.  The images of imprisonment and danger represent the social, intellectual and economic frustration of women in a rigid paternalistic society – ”

“Spare me.”  [Her colleague interrupted.]  “I’m not knocking literary criticism, but I just don’t give a damn about analysis of that sort, be it Freudian or feminist.  The only thing I care about is whether it’s a good read.”

ME TOO.  As someone who loves to read, and who loves to read a story without attempting to extrapolate “the true meaning,” I hate listening to lectures explaining symbolism and imagery.  If there isn’t a letter from the author stating “HERE IS WHAT I WAS ACTUALLY SAYING: AN INTERPRETATION OF THE SUBTEXT OF MY STORY” then I’m really not interested in someone else’s opinion of that (theoretical) subtext.  And basically this entire book was an explanation of the subtext of every book ever written by a woman.  So boring.

Meanwhile, in between lectures the actual story tooled right along and was quite interesting.  Karen and her friends are gathering information about Ismene and exploring the old mansion where the manuscript was found.  Eerie happenings that go from peculiar to frightening to life-threatening abound.  But the ending felt weak – some events were left unexplained entirely (especially the more supernatural events), and for the rest, well, everyone gets a piece of the blame pie.  Instead of being one bad guy, turns out that pretty much each thing was caused by someone different.  Ismene’s story itself is suddenly wrapped up in a very bizarre turn of events, and I don’t know, I just felt let down by the conclusion, especially after I’d endured a few hundred pages of Karen’s rather arrogant attitude –

The [laundromat] was doing a brisk business.  She had to wait for a machine.  As she stood tapping her foot impatiently, she saw a familiar face.  It was bent over a book, but she recognized the tight-clustered black curls and heavy horn-rimmed glasses …  the librarian – what was her name?  Tanya something.  The glasses must be an affectation, an attempt to look older and more authoritative.  Most women fo that age wore contacts.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just being weird here.  Except I’ve worn glasses pretty much my whole life, and prefer them to contacts because I find the more convenient and comfortable, yet Karen immediately snap-judges Tanya.  She did that with everyone, immediately plunking them into a category and then complaining about the way men always do the same thing to women.

So, like I said – in the end 3/5 for a decent premise and some engaging moments, but a little disappointing in the end.  I still have the rest of Michaels’s works on the TBR, though, so I’m sure we’ll come across another one soon, hopefully with better results.