The Gentleman Poet by Kathryn Johnson

If you look through my reviews, you will find very few books that have no mystical element to them. Generally, I stick to the fantasy genre, but The Gentleman Poet intrigued me, and I just had to try it. I found it through a meme. Both I and another blogger posted about books based on Shakespeare's The Tempest (what are the odds?). I happened to see it at the library in on the new fiction shelf this week.

En route to the Americas in 1609, Elizabeth Persons, a young servant girl, sees her blinding headache as an ominous sign. Sure enough, a hurricane during the final leg of their journey tosses the ill-fated Sea Venture and its one hundred and fifty passengers and crew onto the dreaded shores of the Bermudas, the rumored home of evil spirits and dangerous natives. 

In the months that pass—time marked by grave hardship, mutiny, adventure, danger . . . and a blossoming love between Elizabeth and the wrecked ship's young cook—she despairs of their ever being rescued. But she finds hope and strength in a remarkable new friendship, forming a fast bond with the Sea Venture's historian, a poet traveling under the name of William Strachey. But Will is more than he seems. To many back home in England, he is known by a different name: Shakespeare. And he sees in their great shared travails the makings of a magical, truly transcendent work of theater.

This book was an easy, fast read for me. The print is huge, and the book itself is much shorter than what I'm used to. Johnson's prose is beautiful but not flowery, and Elizabeth is a clever narrator. Her observations made me giggle in a few places, and she seemed to be a very real character for me. I think that was my favorite part of this book...I could picture all the characters with ease and they were very fleshed out and realistic. Their reasons for being the way they were made sense. Oftentimes, authors miss a plausible backstory to characters.

Dread Bermuda, where most of the novel takes place, is not the dangerous, horrible place the castaways expected. They rightly describe it as paradise, lush with vegetation, animal life, and mostly beautiful weather. Unfortunately, this is where things got somewhat unrealistic. Birds that are extremely tame come to investigate the newcomers and are subsequently killed. I think wild birds would always be suspicious of newcomers. Wild boars are made to seem easy to catch, herd, and kill. On the contrary, wild boars can be extremely dangerous animals. Elizabeth finds a plethora of plants that make excellent spices and not one she discovers is poisonous. While I don't know what spices and herbs come from where, I find it highly unlikely that the same plants that grew in England would grow in Bermuda, but somehow the protagonist comes across the exact same plants, or very close analogs. There are no subsequent hurricanes the likes of which wrecked them in the first place. In short, things just go way way too well for these folks.

I enjoyed the historical notes by the author, and Elizabeth's recipes recorded every few chapters. I like being able to get a "behind the scenes" peek at what historical data inspired this novel. However, I found the connection between the historical William Strachey and William Shakespeare to be extremely shaky. However, Johnson admits this herself, emphasizing that the book is not history but fiction. It is an artist's interpretation of historical record, and doesn't claim to be anything else.

Suspension of disbelief aside, this book was quite enjoyable. Nothing groundbreaking, but a fun way to pass a few hours. I would definitely recommend giving this one a go if you like interesting spins on history or literature. I look forward to future novels written by Johnson.

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 3.5 / 5

Buy or Try? Try
More? Standalone

Content

Plot: 3 / 5
Setting: 4 / 5
Characters: 4 / 5

Style
Pace: Middlin'
Descriptiveness: Prose

Fantasy factor: Not fantasy

Amazon.com link

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: RIP V Review IV

I know I'm a little late on the uptake with this book, but I hadn't even heard of it before I started blogging and following book bloggers. Apparently there's a huge hullabaloo about The Hunger Games. I can't say I particularly understand that, but I'll explain a bit more later. I have mixed feelings about this book. From the cover:

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

The first thing I noticed about this book was the tense which the author uses: present tense. As in, "I grab the book, and open it to page 233." Katniss is the narrator, and the writing is very informal.

I had a really hard time getting into The Hunger Games basically until the games themselves started. Katniss is clearly a very damaged girl, she's had a rough life. At first, I didn't really like her all that much, but as the Games wore on I started to like her a little more. I feel like despite the book being narrated by her, despite flashbacks, despite the fact she takes her sister's place, you really don't know much about Katniss until the Games begin. I understood a bit more about how she felt. I immediately liked Peeta, however. I think that distinction between Katniss's personality and Peeta's was well done. Their difference in upbringing and struggles is obvious.

You can't beat this story for originality. Sometimes dystopias can become routine when it's the same societal structure over and over. The Hunger Games is unlike anything I've personally ever read. I think that is at least part of why this book has garnered so much praise.

It is also an easy, fast read. It's exciting and it's brutal and it's dark. If I had children, I'm not sure I'd recommend they read this until they were older because it is pretty violent and...well...dark. Despite not maybe wanting to be friends with Katniss, I wanted her to succeed, and I wanted that shell of hers to crack and let Peeta into her heart. I got fairly into the book and I just had to stay up late last night and see what happened to the characters.

Personally, I want to know more about how all of this happened. How the heck the Capitol ended up the way it is, and who the rulers are that of 12 districts full of about 8,000 people, not one person seemed to rise up and rebel against their children being taken away.

But I'm not in a huge hurry to find out. Catching Fire has 30 people ahead of me to read it, Mockingjay has 57. As previously mentioned, I have mixed feelings about The Hunger Games. I enjoyed it, and it was entertaining. I can't say it was particularly well written, I'm afraid, but it wasn't a total train wreck either. I also hesitate to judge based on the writing, because I know it's a YA book and it's from the perspective of a very damaged and probably uneducated 16 year old girl. The story was very interesting, but the world wasn't as fleshed out as I like. I'm hoping that in subsequent books we'll find out more about Panem.

Overall, I enjoyed it while I was reading it. But when I go back and think about it, there are some things that could use improvement. I will read the subsequent books, but I'm not really rabid to get them, and I definitely don't understand the fuss surrounding these. I didn't love this book, but I did like it. Perhaps that will change after Catching Fire.

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 3.5 / 5

Buy or Try? Try
More? 1 of 3 in The Hunger Games trilogy

Content

Plot: 4.5 / 5 (some plot holes, but not glaringly obvious)

Setting: 3 / 5 

Characters: 3 / 5

Style 
Pace: Fast
Descriptiveness: Prose
Fantasy factor: Not Fantasy (dystopian)

Amazon.com link

Cover Her Face by PD James - RIP V Review I

My very first RIP V challenge review! Woot!

This novel is not what I generally read. I'm a fantasy/scifi girl to the core. Back cover description:

Headstrong and beautiful, the young housemaid Sally Jupp is put rudely in her place, strangled in her bed behind a bolted door. Coolly brilliant policeman Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must find her killer among a houseful of suspects, most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill.

 I am a sucker for Masterpiece Mystery!, the BBC show that comes on every Sunday on the educational television channel. As I was reading this, I was reminded of those little stories I watch every week and tried to imagine what it would be like acted out. When I later discussed the book with my parents (who both love PD James), I realized that my gripes really don't have anything to do with the book itself, but rather mostly the genre. I'm just not a mystery reader. I like watching them, I even like listening to them on podcast or CD, but I'm just not crazy about reading them.

I got a bit lost in her descriptions sometimes. I noted that sentences could be as long as a paragraph in some places. Along the same lines, I felt like there was a lot of extraneous information. I would have thought that the story would follow Dalgliesh closer, but he doesn't even show up until the middle of the book (understandable) and even then there are some scenes that he is not even present in which seemed unimportant anyway (less understandable). I will say that the characters were diverse and well fleshed-out. I could picture these people, and their mannerisms were consistent and varied.

All in all, I struggled with this book a bit, and was glad it was only 250 pages. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd gotten it on tape/CD/podcast. It wasn't a bad book, just not my taste. I will still try Death in Holy Orders by PD James, but it probably won't be the next book I read.

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 2.5 / 5

Buy or Try? Try
More? 1 of 14 about Adam Dalgliesh

Content

Plot: 3 / 5 (solid, but not exciting)
Setting: 2 / 5 

Characters: 3.5 / 5

Style 
Pace: Slow to Middlin' 
Descriptiveness: Poetry 
Fantasy factor: Not fantasy

Amazon.com Link