octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

This was really interesting and enjoyable. I was a little hesitant to read it so soon after Sonia Sotomayor's My Beloved World, because although I knew very little about Michelle Obama, somewhere in the dim recesses of my brain I'd grasped she'd been a lawyer, and I wanted a break before another law-heavy book because I do find them a little hard going (though I did enjoy the Sotomayor book, don't get me wrong). Luckily for me, the whole law experience is zipped through very quickly here. Law school merits, if I recall correctly, an entire paragraph, and Obama's early experiences in law bored her rigid, a fact with which I could utterly sympathise. So it's not very long at all until we get to politics, which I find much more visceral and appealing.

Though really, I think it's fair to say that the book is political from the beginning. There's an awareness of inequality, of urban change and the ability of individuals to access (or not access) educational and social advantages that permeates the text. Throughout the book, Obama comments that she has "never been a fan of politics," that she does not have a political mind, and that's not a politician herself. I can maybe agree with the last, in that she's never been elected to political office, but is that what makes a politician? Increasingly, I wonder if limiting that definition does us any favours, because it seems to me that Obama is intensely political, and has been nearly all the way through her working life. Before her stint in the White House, her own work is strongly centred around increasing access for minorities and marginalised people, both to healthcare and to political and power structures of various sorts. She has an interest and a talent for it, and I fail to see how this isn't a fundamentally political job, so I think she under-rates herself there. In the White House, of course, one cannot escape politics, but it was interesting to have the experience of the institution from the point of view of the First Lady, because I cannot imagine - even knowing very little about American First Ladies as I do - that that could ever be an easy job. The lack of privacy alone... it's expected, of course, but I'd find it nigh on unbearable, I don't know how any of them cope. Anyway, it's approachable and sympathetic and well worth reading.

This children's novel-in-verse is extremely appealing. It's influenced very much by the life of the author, who as a child went through much of what the protagonist, Hà, experiences. After the loss of her father in the Vietnam War, ten year old Hà, her mother, and three older brothers are evacuated, under heavy fire, from Saigon. They end up as refugees in Alabama, of all places, and life there is very different from at home. Given that the book is told from Hà's perspective, there is a particular focus on her struggle to fit into primary school, but it's clear from the text that every member of the family is having their own challenges. Racism, unfortunately, is a clear problem, but there are also a number of kind and helpful people, particularly their cowboy sponsor, one of Hà's schoolteachers, and a neighbour who helps the little girl to better her English. (There's a series of poems about the problems of learning English, with all its difficulty and stupid rules, and some of them are very funny indeed.)

It's an immensely sympathetic telling of what must have been a difficult and often alienating experience. What a great book for kids, though - as an adult I really appreciate it, but I'm not the intended audience. I can see this one really appealing to younger readers, however, because the story is so interesting, and Hà is so relatable in her confusion and humour and (occasional) spite, that one can't help but root for her... and, of course, for other refugees like her.

Another enjoyable historical romance from Tessa Dare, but from a different series this time. From what I gather, having only read the first volume, all the stories are set in a place called Spindle Cove, which is a sort of feminist enclave in Regency England. The idea behind it is that it passes itself off as a destination for convalescent and otherwise unwell young women. These poor creatures, who would otherwise be subject to the gruesome and stupid medical practices of the time, which centre around mercury and bloodletting, instead are allowed to indulge themselves with decent food, plenty of exercise, and geology. Basically, they're allowed a bit of freedom to have a life, and no surprise, their health improves, because swimming, decent conversation, and a bit of cake do more for general wellbeing than being confined to bed, having scalpels taken to one, and never being allowed to hunt for fossils. Anyway, a small group of army officers is billeted nearby, and their leader quickly butts heads with the woman in charge of Spindle Cove... and, unsurprisingly, they even more quickly fall in love.

As has been my experience with Dare, both protagonists are decent people, with actual friends and storylines of their own. Notable, too, in the three volumes of hers I've read, is a ridiculous and entertaining animal. First it was a vicious ermine, then it was an ancient and decrepit dog, and this time round it's a pet sheep called Dinner. I find the animals an entertaining little quirk, but much as I liked a lot of this, I did think it went a little over the top at the end, what with the whole cannon subplot. Still, it's streets ahead of a lot of the romances I've been reading lately: Dare is consistently entertaining, and I cackled my head off at poetry night at the tea shop.

This is an easy read, and mildly likeable. Actually, "mildly likeable" describes everything about it, from the main character to the plot to the prose. There's absolutely nothing here that really stands out, but there's nothing that really irritates me either. It kind of reminds me of porridge, to be honest: it's there and it's filling but there's only a very unassuming flavour until you add something to it. Grafton's brief architectural digressions aside, there's not a lot been added here.

This has the most appalling title, and I cannot imagine why the publishers chose to put a blue dress on the cover given that so much of the plot involves a red one, but odd presentation aside, this is a thoroughly good-natured and enjoyable romance. I've finally found a romance author other than Tessa Dare who believes in making her protagonists likeable people, and it makes such a difference. Anyway, apart from the Percy subplot, which I found tonally jarring and had very little interest in, this is a frothy popcorn read with shades of Pride and Prejudice about it. Not in the leads, but Mr. Collins is rebranded as Mr. Humphrey and is as entertainingly awful, although Humphrey improves - if only a little - over the course of the story where Collins does not, and gets his own deserved happy ending. I did like, too, that the Duke and Duchess, who must be in their 50s, get most of the sex scenes, because that's a refreshing change.

I'm interested to find that in my efforts to read more romance this year, the only ones I've actually liked so far are historical. There must be some contemporary romance writers out there who are producing enjoyable stuff, though, and I'm determined to find them.

The second of the Percy Jackson series, and I liked it as well as the first. It doesn't truly excite me, but it's a decent enough way to pass a couple of hours. These books have an interesting tone - very flippant - and while I can see how appealing they would be to kids in general, I wonder if they would have appealed to me when I was a kid. Thinking back to my childhood obsession with Susan Cooper and her Dark Is Rising series, part of the attraction was that it was grim and serious and had a lot going on underneath. Percy Jackson is none of those things, and everything is laid out right on the surface, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. It's just a different thing, and if it doesn't speak to me so much, it strikes me as a series that would particularly appeal to boys, and that's undoubtedly a good thing. It can be very difficult finding middle-grade books that boys want to read, and we need more of them.

I enjoyed this, but I feel in some ways that I should have liked it more than I did. It's made up, after all, of elements that I love - an interesting structure, books, the story of a monster, hidden family secrets, that lovely mysterious Gothic sense of undermining. And the prose is very smooth, which I always appreciate. But countering that is the fact that it's so long, which wouldn't matter if it kept me riveted... but it didn't. There were places it dragged, to be honest, though I'm less sure that it's a flaw in the book rather than my own impatience with lengthy stories that's caused the dragging. The rambling, gentle prose is certainly conducive to a dreaming, drawn-out kind of nostalgia, but suitable as it all was, I can't help but think the book might have lost a third of its page count and not suffered for it. Also, the ending was all a bit too interconnectedly neat if you ask me.

One and a half stars, rounding up to two. I couldn't in good conscience lump it with the other one star romances I've read lately, as their protagonists were awful people and these aren't, and I quite enjoyed some of the characters, especially the supportive friends. The prose, however, is appalling. There were times I winced at every page. I understand that historical fiction authors may want to use old-fashioned language, but this is ludicrously over-the-top. I can't see Jane Austen coming up with phrases like "Doesn't do to get so foxed at your own betrothal ball, Barkworth. One would think you didn't want to marry the gel." Yes, "gel" - and not used by an unpleasant maiden aunt, but the hero and his friends. I don't know whether it's better or worse than their other favourite phrase, "bits of muslin," used (entirely too often) to refer to young women. Pick a page, any page, and this horrible prose is entirely too apparent: "Poor chit. Probably took a wigging the entire way."

It's all just desperately clumsy. Less is more, please.

This has an enormously silly title, but it's still deeply entertaining. I laughed out loud at a number of points, because there's a really funny undertone going on here. A lot of it is lobster-related - the heroine is an illustrator of biological texts - and her scientific ambitions are appealing and relatable. The whole thing's just immensely good-natured. It might be my favourite Tessa Dare so far.

I'm beginning to sense a trend, however. In this, my year of reading more romance, there's been a sharp split between romances I like and romances I don't - with the latter, it's always down to the fact that the protagonists are terrible people. With the former, however... my interest is more often in the heroine than the hero. It's not the the hero isn't appealing, but I'm starting to note a cookie-cutter tendency here. Must the heroes all have miserable childhoods? Seriously. Perhaps I'm getting picky, but I'd like to see one with a man who isn't emotionally constipated because his family deserted him, or died around him, or mistreated him in some way. That particular trope was featured rather heavily here, and though lobsters make up for a great deal I was beginning to side-eye the endless litany of childhood woe. I'd rather read more suffering along the lines of the poetry night - "Were I a steed, I'd neigh for thee" - because that shit was hilarious.

Ho hum, another romance, another man with a terrible childhood. Is there a secret romance writers cabal where they all sign a contract in their own blood to include this trope in everything they write? This time it's alcoholism and sexual abuse, and of course it leads to emotional incapacity in the hero, because apparently that's the fundamental character trait for men in romance. Irritating as that is, however, it was the heroine that gave me trouble. Admittedly she improved fast and by the end I quite liked her, but her beginning was horrible. She came across as a ditz, and an entitled one at that. (Her parents paid for her entire education, gave her a trust fund and a "generous post graduation cash gift," and she inherited a house and a business from her grandmother, and Annabelle Granger still has the temerity to refer to herself as the underdog, to which I say a great fat Fuck Off, Annabelle, You Spoilt Brat.) The romance between these two actually developed decently enough, but it didn't make up for the secondary romance between Portia and Bodie, which was not very well explored and frankly difficult to credit - it needed more development than the thin sketching it got, and the few times the text shifted back to them I rolled my eyes. Finally, the heroine's family was plain flat-out mean, which wouldn't worry me if the text didn't excuse their meanness as an expression of love. I kept waiting for someone - anyone! - to say "You don't treat people you love this way" but no-one ever did.

I mean it's not completely terrible, and there are some nice moments, but the search for an unambiguously likeable contemporary romance goes on.