Constant Reader

Don't expect Anne. This story is grim.

Revisado: 06-08-23

This is one of the most depressing books I've ever read. I'm utterly confused as to how people could call it "fun." It starts with the death of a beloved father, a squabble over who among the relatives with be forced to take Emily, and Emily's grim welcome to her new home. I kept thinking each new terrible thing would get fixed, the way things got fixed in the Anne books. For instance, Emily, emotionally battered, could be given her own room -- the house has space -- but no, she's made to share a bed with the family matriarch, who has not one ounce of love for the child and who forces her to lie next to her as stiff as a statue all night long. I assumed this would only last a few nights and then somehow she'd get free... no, it went on for years! Welcome to New Moon, Emily, this is your life now. There's a searing moment of emotional abuse when a sadistic teacher finds Emily's private writing -- so private she's shown it to no one -- and reads it aloud to the class in a mocking voice as all the children laugh at her. Emily reacts badly to this, and later Emily's guardian tries to force her to apologize to the teacher on her knees.

I read that and thought, this feels like something that may have really happened to Montgomery. This wasn't the author making a delightful story in which an orphan has amusing childhood adventures and wins love. This was just a litany of mean and unfair treatment. The book is realistic, not nostalgic -- and full of painful details. Halfway through I decided I couldn't handle this constant merry-go-round of misery and stopped listening. The trouble is, Montgomery is such a good writer that I wanted to know what happened! I kept wondering. Finally I started it up again and finished the book.

There are sequels, and if you keep going through Emily's life, it does get somewhat better. But even then -- a terrible thing happens, possibly the worst that could happen to a writer, and again I assumed it could be fixed. (Because there was an obvious fix. I kept waiting for it.) No, again Emily takes the blow and has to live with it.

As you can tell by now, this is not comfort reading. It's far closer to the bone.

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Mixed feelings

Revisado: 12-18-22

First, Kirsten Potter did well reading this.

I have mixed feelings about the book. I've enjoyed this author's medieval mysteries, and as I like fantasy, I had high hopes.

It's odd, because the things I disliked here are exactly the things I generally want to see more of in fantasy! A great many fantasy writers just settle details by hand-waving: how did our characters travel? By horse or by foot, no real specifics. How did they do magic? They just did. They studied non-specific wizardly books and performed non-specific rituals.

Gellis does not take the careless way out. She goes to the other extreme. I know far more about the magical system here than I needed to, and far more about travel details. When the heroine enters a building, there's often a description of its layout that's so specific -- hallways, rooms, where the stairs are -- that I'd expect to see it in a locked-room murder mystery; here, it rarely leads to anything.

All writers have tics, but in this case they were too repetitive. There was a point where I started to think that if one more person shook their head in response to their own inner thoughts, I'd lose my mind. I don't blame Gellis for this, though -- that sort of thing is often invisible to the writer. It's what an editor is for.

About halfway through, I nearly quit -- I felt as though I were plodding onward through a deep snow of details that were not in themselves interesting. For example, there was little of the sensuality of everyday life a viewpoint character might take joy in -- the smells, the smiles, the light on a leaf -- and more a practical listing of daily tasks to be accomplished. The pacing is slow. When the two main characters are trapped in a system of caves early on, they seem to be there forever. The relationship between them, obvious to the reader, is opaque to the male and female leads, who persist in misunderstanding each other right to the final pages.

Having said all this... I did in fact keep listening till the end. I did want to see how it came out. I think a great deal of my issues with the book could be solved if it were halved in length.

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A favorite, beautifully read

Revisado: 08-22-22

There are three books in the Miss Buncle series, so you have a lot to look forward to. (The fourth, The Four Graces, is not from Miss Buncle's point of view.) As other reviews will tell you, it's the tale of a spinster of a certain age in 1930s England, who finds herself in need of income and decides to write a book. Miss Buncle's book is based upon the characters in her village, as that's all she knows about. Hilarity ensues.

The Buncle series is the lightest of D.E. Stevenson's works, and my personal favorite. Patricia Gallimore's performance in this reading is a tour-de-force; I've listened to the entire series four or five times over the past few years, and I plan to come back to it often, as to a refuge, whenever life seems harsh. Gallimore does older men, younger men, boys, girls, upper-class matrons, lower-class servants, and of course, the great Miss Buncle. I've no doubt that there are delicate nuances here that, as an American, I just don't get; the law office clerk in book two, for instance -- I could sense it was a working-class accent, which I would not have predicted from words on a page.

In fact, there is only one misstep, in book three. This isn't really a spoiler, and you'll see why when you get to that book, but I'll put the word "spoiler" in here in case you want to stop reading. A German character appears, whose English is supposed to be so good that people are ready to believe he's English. But his dialogue is performed with a German accent! Every time I get to that part of the narration I wonder whose idea that was.

But that's a minor glitch. This series and reading are superb. I turn to it just as I turn to Austen, when I need to believe that civilization still exists.

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Not the best Stevenson

Revisado: 02-12-19

On the gothic and bleak side (though with a happy ending, as one expects of D.E. Stevenson -- this is not a spoiler). I'm afraid the book lacks the charm of her later works. I did stick with it to the end, though. If you've never read anything by this author, I strongly suggest you begin elsewhere -- perhaps with Miss Buncle's Book or The Four Graces.

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