simplyalexandra's Reviews (890)

The Help has been out, and popular, for quite a few years now. I finally picked it up at a thrift store this year. I figured if I was going to read something about Kickass Females, this would be a great one right? Well, it is. I love historical fiction, and I LOVE this book! It follows two African American maids, and one young wealthy white woman during the 1960's in Mississippi. It is written from the perspective of each of the three, and follows them as the two tell their stories about being maids in white households and the other records, edits, and sends the stories away in hopes of publishing them, and sparking change. For some reason, I especially love reading books that take place during the civil rights movement. This one was no different, and it really opened my eyes to how the relations were, especially in the upper class South at that time. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn about American history a little more, or to anyone who enjoys a well spun piece of historical based fiction. This book is really wonderful, it left me feeling both wrecked and hopeful. That's talent.

Elixir follows Clea a 17 year old, travel photographer / politician's daughter. She comes home from a trip and begins to edit her photos realizing that a mysterious man is in EVERY picture that she took. She looks back through older pictures and he is in those as well. She then starts having extremely realistic dreams about this guy, and in each one she is a different woman. Each dream takes place in a different time period / place as well. From 1920's Chicago to Renaissance Italy. Clea then vows to figure out exactly what is going on, and who this guy is. It's an interesting story, and it ends on a cliffhanger. This was a re-read for me, but I remember enjoying the second one as well, so I am excited to read it again and finally finish the series. This is by no means great literature, but I really like this book. It combines travel with the YA fantasy/romance genre. That's pretty spot on for me.

Most of you have probably seen this movie, I took the chance to read it during the end of our Florida trip and our first week back home. Capote has a talent for description. He makes these quirky characters seem so real and vibrant. I enjoyed the fact that the book was different than the movie. I liked the additional characters. I liked that some of my favorite parts of the movie were in the book initially. But overall, Holly Golightly's character is much less delightful, and a lot more certifiable. You can see that her intentions in her wanting to marry rich and live a big life are much less a whim than they seem in the movie. She's pretty calculated, and crazy. It was very interesting, but had me feeling less attached to her character and the writer's fascination with her. And I don't even want to talk about Cat.

On the other hand, I really liked the three short stories that followed the novel. They were called A Diamond Guitar, House of Flowers, and A Christmas Memory. They were all really good. And I think I liked them overall better than Breakfast at Tiffany's.

This is the Literary Ladies book club book. I downloaded it from the online library right after I finished Night Circus. I read most of it on our 9 hour flight from AK to TX. It is about a girl who's older brother is sent to jail. In the aftermath of what has happened she has to find out who she is on her own. This one was a little bit dramatic for me, but not too bad. I thought it was good, and a relatively quick read. I do think the phrase "took a beat" ("a beat later" "after a beat") etc. were extremely over used considering it was written from a teenager's POV. Thoughts on this phrase? What did you think Literary Ladies book club folks?

House of Flowers was about a young girl who lives in a brothel in the Caribbean. It has a folk tale element to it, a kind of magic, which I loved. She runs away and marries a young man she meets. She runs into conflict when her husband's grandmother decides to play tricks on her. On goodreads it seems that many people were disappointed in the ending. I wasn't. I should also mention that the description of the settings especially are really lovely. Anyone read this?

A Diamond Guitar is about men in prison, and a young man who is arrested and changes the dynamic of the group. He is very young and reminds the older prisoners of what they cannot have. It's kind of sad, but I wasn't overly invested in this one.

Back when we were planning our visit to the Maritimes I was doing some research on the area and happened upon some Canadian history. It was about the expulsion of 11,500 Acadian people (French Colonists living in Canada's Maritime Region) from the Maritimes as a result of not signing oaths with the British. The Acadians feared that signing such an oath would anger the Native Americans living there, and were also not loyal to the British, so they refused to sign it. 1/3 of the expelled Acadians died at sea from disease or drowning. Many families were split up, and many of the people were forced to settle along the Mississippi river.

This was something that I had not learned about at all in school, so I was really surprised by it, and interested in learning more. It turns out Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the American poet wrote an epic poem called Evangeline, about a fictional woman who upon being expelled from Acadia is in search of her lost love Gabriel. This poem is written in a way to mimic Greek and Latin epics.

I suppose critics have all sorts of things to say about it, but here are my thoughts:

It's lovely that Longfellow thought to write on something that was such a tragedy, but also to turn it into a story that many could follow and be engrossed in.

Overall I didn't find the poem too hard to read, while it is written in dactylic hexameter ... I didn't find myself struggling too much to get through it or comprehend it. It is only about 60 pages long in a small sized book as well, so it makes for a quick read.

See Full Review Here: http://simplyalexandramyfavoritethings.blogspot.com/2015/09/evangeline-reading-classics.html

Rebecca is another classic that has been on my list for a while. Once I found this gorgeous vintage $2 copy (above) I was in love. However, I had it for 3 years before I began reading it... so I'm glad to be checking it off!

The book started out with and eerie scene set in the present, but quickly moved to the past. It told the story of an unnamed girl who met a mysterious man in Monaco and fell in love. She married him and moved back to England with him. From there you learn the tortured past of both Mr. de Winter and his home.

The story is filled with scenes that almost lead you up to another piece of the mysterious puzzle, but then leave you hanging. This style is kind of unusual for modern day readers, where something shocking happens in nearly every chapter of a book or episode of a TV show. At first I found it a little underwhelming, but realized that once I got to the actual action it ended up being more exciting!

Beyond that I found quite a lot of it depressing. I found the main character very meek and irritating. She NEVER stuck up for herself! She spent nearly the whole book being more of a narrator than anything else. Constantly obsessing about Mr. de Winter's first wife and how she stacked up, I found her pretty hard to relate to. I feel that Du Maurier created her that way intentionally though, as she is never given her own name. She is only ever referred to as Mrs. de Winter, after she is married. It was extremely strange to read a book from the point of view of a character with no name! This became a very interesting thing to think about while dissecting the novel later.

Read more here: http://simplyalexandramyfavoritethings.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-one-and-only-rebecca.html