Category: Historical Fiction

Movie Review: The (Gerard Butler) Phantom of the Opera

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews8 Comments

Phantom 9I finally watched the Gerard Butler Phantom.  I say “finally” because I haven’t seen it in…at least eight years.  I know this, because I know I haven’t seen it since the first time I saw the stage production.  Since the last time I watched this movie, I’ve watched just about every version of Phantom I could find, including the stage production…eight times, actually!

If you’re not familiar with it, the Butler Phantom is a movie version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical–but very much not the play (for that you want the 25th anniversary/Karimloo Phantom).  I liked this movie when it came out–but I was seventeen and I’d never seen the play.  And ever since I saw the play, I’ve been afraid to go back to the movie…  But I finally did, because I’m writing a retelling and this is research.  And the movie was…not as bad as I feared.  But it’s SO not the play.  Although!  I have a theory that addresses all the movie’s issues, so keep reading for that. 🙂 Continue reading “Movie Review: The (Gerard Butler) Phantom of the Opera” →

Book Review: The Runner (Tillerman Cycle)

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, ReviewsLeave a comment

After rereading and reviewing the first two books of Cynthia Voigt’s Tillerman Cycle, I skipped on past #3 (even though it’s my favorite) because I read it relatively recently, and went to #4, The Runner.  It’s chronologically earliest, set ten years before Homecoming opens the series, and focuses on a different generation of Tillermans.

The title character is Bullet Tillerman, the uncle of Homecoming‘s Dicey.  Like Dicey’s Song, this is mostly a character book.  Bullet is a high school student during the Vietnam War, and the champion cross country runner in his school–but he doesn’t care about winning, only about running well.  At home, he fights a mostly silent battle of wills against his father, while at school he holds himself aloof from the racial tensions rocking the student body.

I normally love Voigt’s focus on character…but in this case, I couldn’t get into the particular character she focused on.  I wrote in my review of the earlier books about Dicey’s and her grandmother’s determination to hold themselves apart and not be dependent on anyone.  Bullet shares the same characteristic with his mother and niece, but more so. Continue reading “Book Review: The Runner (Tillerman Cycle)” →

Book Review: The Witch of Blackbird Pond

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Juvenile, Reviews3 Comments

I seem to be starting my year of rereading with classic children’s books.  Along with Little House in the Big Woods, I also read another book about simple living in the woods: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare.

Set a couple hundred years before Wilder’s book, in 1687, the book focuses on Kit Tyler, who leaves her comfortable life in Barbados when her grandfather dies and goes to live with her only relatives, in Connecticut.  Used to luxury, fine clothes, and books (!), Kit struggles to find her place in the severe, hard-working Puritan community.  She doesn’t know how to do any work and the neighbors look askance at her high spirits.  Then one day she meets Hannah, who lives apart out in the meadow.  A kind, elderly woman, Hannah is a Quaker and therefore an outcast.  The rumors of her being a witch seem like nonsense–until an illness sweeps through the community and people look for someone to blame. Continue reading “Book Review: The Witch of Blackbird Pond” →

Book Review: Little House In the Big Woods

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Juvenile, Reviews5 Comments

I’m starting my year of re-reading well, with a beloved childhood book I haven’t read in…15 years?  18?  I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, but somehow they have not been ones I revisited as I got older–until now, as I just listened to the audiobook of Little House in the Big Woods.

I’m betting most of you know the basic concept here (and there isn’t much of a place).  Five-year-old Laura lives in a little log cabin in the Big Woods, with Ma and Pa, older sister Mary, and baby Carrie.  The book follows them through a year, talking about daily life and about events like Christmas, harvest and a trip into town.

There’s a lovely charm and sweetness to this book.  Maybe it’s only that I know Wilder was writing about her own childhood, but I very much can feel a warmth and love within the book for the characters and for the time–not so much the historical era, but the era within Wilder’s life.  On this read, I think that warmth was my favorite part, and it’s something I doubt I could have articulated last time I read this book, though I think I felt it then too. Continue reading “Book Review: Little House In the Big Woods” →

Movie Review: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews3 Comments

dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-movie-poster-1941-1020452635During R.I.P. this year, I read a lot of classic horror, including Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  And it wasn’t very good!  But it still left me wanting to watch the movie–specifically, the 1941 one, starring Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman.  It was very much unlike the book, and so much better!

The novel puts the POV for most of the book from a friend of Dr. Jekyll’s, and keeps the mystery (that Hyde and Jekyll are one person) from being revealed for a very long time.  The movie dispenses with both these ideas.  We begin with the affable Dr. Jekyll (Spencer Tracy) who is engaged to be married to the lovely and genteel Beatrix (Lana Turner).  On a walk one night, he encounters Ivy (Ingrid Bergman), a saucy barmaid who quite likes the fine doctor–but he resists temptation and stays true to his fiancee.  Meanwhile in his work, he’s exploring the question of how good and evil are mixed in every individual, and whether there might be a scientific solution to separate them, in the interest of helping the criminally insane.  When he tests his elixir on himself, he morphs into the hideous Mr. Hyde–who has no moral qualms about seeking out Ivy.  Hyde begins a depraved affair with Ivy, while Jekyll grows increasingly conflicted…and increasingly loses control of his darker half. Continue reading “Movie Review: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” →