My Cousin Rachel - review

I read this for the Explore the Classics du Maurier blog tour hosted here: http://she-is-too-fond-of-books.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/explore-classics-in-august-daphne-du.html

I'm possibly posting early but it is Tuesday here, and I do live in the future.

I actually just finished the book itself a little while ago, in a race against myself to see if I would.

I had started it before the tour was planned, and it seemed like a good chance to pick it up and box on, but suddenly EVERY OTHER BOOK EVER started falling out of the sky.

Anyway.

Philip Ambrose is an orphan with means, of a sort. He's adopted by his older cousin Ambrose, who takes him into his household and rasies him as his own son.

Philip's early life is nothing but idyllic. He worships Ambrose, and they live a life of genteel privilege in 19th century Cornwall. Even being sent away to school is barely a blip on Philip's radar, as he always comes home to Ambrose.

Or, he does, until Ambrose himself fails to return from his annual holiday in Italy.

DUN DUN DUN ........

His letters home to Philip become patchy and increasingly more cryptic, especially after he marries a woman Philip only knows as Rachel. When Ambrose sends a letter home accusing Rachel of poisoning him, Philip sets out for Italy.

He doesn't encounter Rachel there, but returns home grieving and confused about what really happened to Ambrose.

Then, of course, Rachel - who Philip refers to as "My cousin Rachel" announces that she is coming to visit ...

I read Rebecca a few years ago, and I absolutely loved it. There was something about the atmosphere of the book, and of Ms du Maurier's deft touch with words that I found truly compelling.

The same holds true here, though I found My Cousin Rachel a bit less compelling than Rebecca.

It does take a writer of let's say uncommon skill to keep a reader's attention for 300 pages where essentially nothing happens. Everything is under the surface, and our narrator - a spoilt, self-indulged man-child - is hardly the most reliable. Every single thing we learn of Rachel is filtered through his less than worldly vision and so the questions soon come thick  and fast.

What's happening? What really happened to Ambrose? WHY ARE YOU SUCH A PILL PHILIP, GOSH.

It's hard to say that the tension builds,because tension bleeds through every single page of the book until you feel exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure.

It's definitely a haunting read, and one I think that will revisit me frequently.

Sunday post 4

Hosted by Kimberley here at http://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/ the Sunday Post is a chance to reflect on the week that was, talk about what we've been blogging about, and also a chance to plan the week ahead.

I actually managed to sort of get my act together this past week, and I've posted two reviews.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making here:
http://lifetheuniverseandcats.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/the-girl-who-circumnavigated-fairyland.html

And I'll Give You the Sun, here: http://lifetheuniverseandcats.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/the-girl-who-circumnavigated-fairyland.html

I have to say, for anyone unfamiliar with my ... style, I'm not the most insightful reviewer ever. I'm enthusiastic about the books I'm enthusiastic about, and I will get my rant on about the books I don't like. Beyond that ... Well, if I can make you smile or laugh, then job done :D

(I'm also lazy. But let's not get into that.)

Let's see, what else ...

I have a little less than three weeks to go at work, and I'm sure my last day will be emotional or something, but right now - having made the big grown-up decision - I'm ready to move on, and every week day is just that much more irritating right now.

I'm trying to get through My Cousin Rachel by Tuesday - a 300 page book that's taken me something like a month to read, between losing Morgana, getting sick, and picking up books that are decidedly NOT My Cousin Rachel, but I'm nearly halfway through now and I'm optimistic I'll have a post up in time for the book tour.

With Aarti's More Diverse Universe challenge coming up: http://www.aartichapati.com/2015/08/sign-up-post-diversiverse-is-coming.html and with recent world events, I've been musing in my own quiet, non-intellectual way about how I can better educate myself.

One way, of course, as always, is reading. I think my reading does tend to skew/default to white writers, something I'm sort-of conscious of but then it sinks below the surface again.

So, with Aarti's challenge on the horizon, and with this post that popped up on tumblr: http://catagator.tumblr.com/post/126007994444/committing-to-diversity-when-youre-white-a I'm going to ... try and diversify my reading. Because it's important.

That post suggests setting a challenge for yourself, and so I'm going for every third book I read will be by a non-white writer.  I haven't chosen a book for A More Diverse Universe yet but between now and then, I'm hoping to expand my horizon.

So, after My Cousin Rachel, I'm diving into Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay.

Also, today, I burned my arm on my lamp. Riiiiight where it rests against things.

How was your week? What's coming up?

I'll Give You the Sun - review

Noah and Jude are twins, and as close as any twins can be. Their minds are on the same level and they know that they'll always be there for each other.

But then. Then, Jude starts acting - in her mother's words - like that girl, and Noah meets a boy who makes his heart race but who pulls back from Noah and confuses him terribly.

Then. The twins' mother is killed in a car crash and both of their lives break apart in different ways.

It looks like the cracks that had formed are on their way to becoming permanent, deep fissures, but when Jude is accepted by an eccentric sculptor as a student, things start going in unexpected directions.

Told from alternating points-of-view - Noah at 13 and Jude at 16 - I'll Give You the Sun doesn't hold back at all. It does the opposite of holding back. It comes for your heart and then decides that's not enough, so returns for your kidneys, liver and pancreas as well.

I read I'll Give You the Sun in  a day.  I honestly couldn't stop myself. Noah and Jude's journeys - as individuals and as twins learning how to be individuals - are as exhilarating as they are heartbreaking.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - review

The first thing, obviously, that catches your attention is the title. It's long, yes, but it's also intriguing and - I think - inviting.

WHO is this girl? Why is she in Fairyland? What did she build her ship out of?

The girl is 12-year-old September, who lives with her mother in Omaha, Nebraska. September's father is off to war, and her mother works in a munitions factory.

When The Green Wind - riding  the Leopard of Little Breezes - appears and asks September if she would like to go to Fairyland, she doesn't hesitate.

Gosh, I liked this. I liked this a lot and I can only imagine how much 10-year-old me would have LOVED this. This would have been the book that I read over and over again, wore a path to its place in the library and discovered Fairyland with September all over again and again.

Reading it now, as an alleged adult, there's still a lot to love. September herself. Her companions in Fairyland. The Green Wind and his smoking jacket.

It's whimisical without tipping over into twee, and Ms Valente handles the whole thing with a delicate touch that never, ever talks down to the reader. Instead she invites you in. She talks to you and you are as drawn into Fairyland as much as September is.

If I had nieces the right age, this is the book I would give them for their birthdays and Christmas.

Absolutely lovely.

Sunday post 3

Hosted here at http://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/ the Sunday Post is a chance to chat about what we're reading, what's coming up, the week that was and the week that will be (maybe).

Well, clearly my last week was a bust from go to woe. I was sick last Saturday, and we lost a beloved cat last Sunday, so the week itself was spent convincing myself that yes, I really did have to get out of bed, get spawn to school and go to work myself.

It sort of worked. I was feeling progressively better but still had some digestive issues until Tuesday, and I missed Morgana so very much. I still do. Losing a cat is always hard, but losing a cat like that - that's there 30 seconds after you sit down because she was the lap cat's lap cat - well, I'm still upset.

I ended up taking Friday off work, because I was sad, and tired and just ... used up. If that even makes sense. I feel like I'm veering into the melodramatic.

Anyway. I finished two books - one on Friday, and one on Saturday.

They were The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherine M Valente, and I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson.

They were both great in their own way, and honestly I'd recommend The Girl Who ... to anyone with  a daughter aged between about 8 and 12. So, so magical.

I finished I'll Give You the Sun in a day, and it's just that kind of book. I honestly could not stop reading it. Hopefully I'll have my act together a bit better this week, and will be posting reviews.

For what I'm reading now, I'm still picking through The Duchess War by Courtney Milan, which I'm really, really enjoying. It's such an engaging story. It's slow going because it's my lunchtime iBook read, and I don't always have time for a lunch break.

I'm also diving back in to My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier, for this book tour: http://she-is-too-fond-of-books.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/explore-classics-in-august-daphne-du.html#more my review is due to go up on August 18, so keep an eye out. I've only read Rebecca, but I loved it  a lot so I have high hopes for this one!

I'm also hoping to get back into The Sunne in Splendour this Thursday. Last week I wasn't much good for anything so spent a lot of time doing very much of nothing.

This post is getting long. I know I hinted at blogging about a major life-changing event last time and that post - like every other post last week - just didn't happen.

The short version is this:

I work as a layout/copy-editor. At least, I do, until September 4. My major life-changing event is redundancy. I could have applied for another position, or re-applied for my position - my department is being cut in half, and those interested could re-apply but the whole idea of it made me .... tired.

I'll have enough of a payout to pay off our debts, and a year's grace to find something else. I'm equally terrified and elated, to be honest. The what-ifs are piling up fast, but on balance, I'm thinking of all the things I can do - be home when spawn gets home from school. Read more. Tackle a really large cross-stitch project. Maybe do some volunteer work. Maybe write a book and accidentally become world-famous. Who knows?

I'm wary of getting all navel-gazey and saying I'm trusting in the universe because that's not really my thing, but .... I'm rolling the dice for sure. If this hadn't happened, I would have held on to that job for as long as I could, and perhaps that's not healthy either.

Change and growth are good, right?

Right?

Sunday post - 2

Hosted by http://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/ the Sunday Post is a chance to chat about the week - and blog - that was, and talk about what's coming up in both, also.

It has been ... a week. Well, really a weekend.

I haven't blogged much this week but I did do a "review" of Station Eleven: http://lifetheuniverseandcats.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/station-eleven-review.html and also of Lady Knight, a book I ended up wanting to like more than I did: http://lifetheuniverseandcats.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/lady-knight-review.html

Now I'm reading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which is really, really charming so far; The Duchess Wars on ibooks which was recommended to me, and for my Thursday night chunkster I started The Sunne In Splendor by Sharon Kay Penman. I compiled a shelf for Thursday night's reading and here is what it looks like so far:

My only criteria so far for Thursday night reads is that the book has to be over 400 pages. I was able to cull this lot from my own shelves. The only thing I want to change about it is that it is rather lacking diversity. So if anyone has suggestions for books by non-white writers - same criteria applies - I'm open for suggestions!

Now. On to the less fun stuff. There is one major life event that I'll blog about next week. I'm not deliberately trying to be cryptic, I just need to know it's set in stone before I talk about it here.

As for the weekend ... On Saturday morning I woke up at 4am with *ahem* digestive issues. Luckily the traffic was all one way, so I spent a lot of time sleeping and a lot of time in the loo. I think it was something I ate, but I can't be sure.

Fast forward to just before midnight. I get woken up by spawn, saying he doesn't feel well.

Me: "The bathroom! The bathroom!"

Spawn *Hurls all over my bedroom floor and THEN the bathroom floor.*

So J and I cleaned that up and got him back into bed.

We''re both feeling ... tentatively better today.

Now. Today. We have lost two cats this year, because of age and infirmity. I expect that. But today ...

This is Morgana, the tabby on the left. The tortie on the right is Freya.

About 4pm today, spawn said, "Where's Morgana? I haven't seen her all day." I assumed she'd be around, so I went outside to call her and saw - on the other side of the road - a cat that had been hit by a car.

Sure enough, it was Morgana. We'd never known her to even go on the road, but there she was, bowled, and gone. She was the sweetest, most loving cat, and I was never without her on my lap of a night watching TV.

So. It's not been the most stellar of weekends.

Coming up this week ... I'll blog about the life change I spoke of so obliquely, and hopefully have a couple of reviews.

I hope your week has been better than mine :-)

Lady Knight - review

Edited to add: spoilers ahead for the end of the book. Also, trigger warning for violence of a sexual nature, which is related to the spoiler.

Riannon of Gast is an outcast - a female knight in a heavily male-dominated society in a fantasy setting - sort of, that parallels medieval Europe; Crusades against infidels included.

When Riannon meets Eleanor - a lively young widow, sparks fly. The best parts of Lady Knight are definitely when Riannon and Eleanor are together, sparring verbally, flirting, or doing the horizontal fandango.

I'm really really torn on this one.  I mean, lady knight. Tick. Awesome noble lady in love with lady knight. Tick. Shenanigans of a very personal nature. Tick.

Reasonably well-realised medieval fantasy setting. Tick.

Ambitious priestess who tries to manipulate characters to her own ends. Tick.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut we also have uncomfortable religious parallels to the Crusades. It's a completely male-dominated and driven world wherein a woman literally has no value except as a wife with large .... lands, or as a priestess. Ambitious priestess Aveline isn't ... used enough? It feels like there's a much, much larger story that could be told. Honestly, there's enough in Lady Knight for it to be expanded into a trilogy. Romance! Ambitious priestesses! War! Magic swords!

Ultimately, it feels rushed and, after finishing it last night, I'm still mad at the last 40 pages or so. I get that there needed to be some kind of crisis to push Riannon to act in a way that wasn't contradictory to her character (Riannon is big on honour) but did it have to be that? IS THERE NOT ENOUGH OF THAT ALREADY?

"That" is rape. In the last 40 pages or so, Eleanor is raped by her son in law, and that's the crisis that sparks Riannon's change of heart. Which. Okay. It had to be extreme, but I'm so, so, so disappointed to see that particular plot device in a book by  a lady about ladies.

We should be able to do better than that.