Category: Reviews

Book Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews2 Comments

I was recently perusing my bookshelves for something to read (this comes up less often than you’d think—usually I have a stack from the library) and settled on an old favorite classic: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

The tale begins with one of my favorite opening lines in all of literature: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” (It’s best in a British accent, and preferably Joan Fontaine’s voice.)  The never-named narrator goes on to describe her whirlwind courtship with Maxim de Winter, her arrival with him at his ancestral estate of Manderley, and her growing realization that the memory of the deceased Rebecca, the first Mrs. de Winter, still holds powerful sway over the house and their lives.

This is a delightful, wonderful read in so many, many ways.  I love the narrator, the second Mrs. de Winter.  I love that we never learn her name—that’s such a brilliant writing device.  Throughout the book she’s overwhelmed by the overwhelming presence of Rebecca, and even her name is obscured.  The second Mrs. de Winter also slots nicely into a couple of my favorite literary types.  I love heroines who think they’re ordinary who discover their own power, and I have a serious soft spot for children who are disregarded by the adults in their lives.  The second Mrs. de Winter is definitely the first type, and has elements of the second too, even though she’s twenty-one.

Maxim does see and appreciate her when he meets her, but unfortunately joins a long list of literary heroes (including Mr. Rochester and Mr. Darcy) who do not use their words.  Causing, of course, far more complications and therefore plot. Continue reading “Book Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier” →

Book Review: Around the World in Eighty Days

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews4 Comments

I can’t remember how long ago I read Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, but it was probably high school or even earlier.  I’ve been meaning to reread it for a while now, for a very writerly reason!  In my Phantom of the Opera reimagining, my protagonist Meg dreams of travel.  The Phantom needs a Christmas gift for her, and I thought–Around the World in Eighty Days!  Verne was a French author popular at the time.  Perfect!  Except I thought I ought to reread the book to make sure it really was perfect.

The novel tells the tale of English gentleman Phileas Fogg and his (possibly) mad bet that he can travel around the world in a mere 80 days.  Accompanied by French manservant Passepartout, Fogg travels east from London, through India to America, passing through a series of adventures and mishaps with perfect, imperturbable calm all the way.

This is a strange and fun book.  Like its protagonist Fogg, it is frequently quite calm and unperturbed and serenely explaining (in more detail than really necessary) the exact mathematical calculations enabling Fogg to pursue his goal.  But like its secondary protagonist Passepartout, it also goes on wild flights of drama, including encounters with a murderous cult in India and an extremely bloody attack by Indians somewhere in the American west. Continue reading “Book Review: Around the World in Eighty Days” →

Book Review(s): Dead End in Norvelt and Shiloh

On By cherylmahoneyIn Juvenile, Reviews1 Comment

I’m making ever more headway on Newbery Medal reads (great options for audiobooks, which helps a lot!) and thought I’d hit two today.  Both stories about boys in small towns, so they kinda fit each other.  But the quality varied!…

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

In the tiny town of Norvelt, young Jack is looking forward to a summer of baseball, trips to the movies and other fun, until one bad decision and one wild injustice (more on that later) gets him grounded until school starts.  He’s only allowed out to help elderly Miss Volker write obituaries…which comes up surprisingly often as a string of old women start dying.

I wanted to like this more than I did.  An ordinary kid surrounded by slightly kooky characters in a small town sounds great!  Dollops of history as Miss Volker looks to the past to expound on ideals of freedom and community, plus a hint of a murder mystery.  What’s not to like?

Well, a few things.  I never loved Jack; I don’t know why, I just didn’t.  Usually I like kids who get a bad rap from adults, especially if they like to read, but somehow this one didn’t work for me.  Maybe Jack liked to read a little too much about bloody history, harder to relate to than a Star Wars fandom.  I hate (hate) to classify books as boy books or girl books, but this one did seem to be aimed at a certain age of boy, when blood and guts are so cool.  That wasn’t a big part of the story, but it was an element.  Personally, I could have lived without Jack’s perpetual bloody nose, or his love of war movies. Continue reading “Book Review(s): Dead End in Norvelt and Shiloh” →

Book Review: Sidewise in Time

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science FictionLeave a comment

My parallel universe reading has taken me back into some classic science fiction, to read what I believe is the very first published example of a parallel universe story.  At least, that’s what the author’s introduction and Wikipedia say!  Sidewise in Time and Other Scientific Adventures by Murray Leinster was an excellent collection of shockingly prescient stories from the 1930s and 40s, leaving me wondering why I’ve never heard of this author before!

“Sidewise in Time” is a novella, so I’m counting it as a read for my challenge.  It features a collision between universes (I think—it’s technobabble), such that suddenly different patches of parallel universes are aligned.  So as you move geographically across land, you also pass into patches of other universes.  And just to make it even messier, nothing’s settled so the universes are still moving.  The story mostly follows one group of explorers moving through portions of Virginia and in and out of universes, with intermittent sections on other chaos happening elsewhere.

It’s a good story in its own right, but I was fascinated by how complete this idea of parallel universes was, here in its first incarnation.  Leinster has fully established the concept of different occurrences in the past spawning new universes, with subsequent different results in the present. Continue reading “Book Review: Sidewise in Time” →

Movie Review: Star Trek Beyond

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction2 Comments

star-trek-beyond-2016-posterI have complicated feelings about the new Star Trek movies.  Complicated.  Feelings.  That didn’t stop me from going to see the newest one, Star Trek Beyond, on opening weekend, or from enjoying it!  But because I’ve noticed that those complicated feelings get more complicated, and tend to shift, the longer I think about these movies, I do feel I have to write a disclaimer…that the review to follow is my initial impression.  It may not be stable.  But it is a little complicated!

This is perhaps the most straight-forward plot we’ve seen yet.  Out in deep space, the Enterprise enters an isolated bit of the galaxy (there may have been a nebula or an asteroid formation or something cutting it off…I didn’t quite follow) to respond to a distress signal.  They encounter unexpectedly fierce enemies and end up stranded on a planet, without a ship and split up into pairs of regular characters, while a madman seeks an ancient weapon to destroy the Federation.

Compared to the last two, that was really straight-forward and logical.  Considering some of the plot problems of the previous two, this was a big step forward!  I liked the decision to split the crew up too, because it gave us a chance to really see everyone.  To some degree this has felt like the Kirk and Spock Show lately, so it was good to see more of the characters get a fair shot.  More on that later. Continue reading “Movie Review: Star Trek Beyond” →