Books

[darkelf105]

I do not remember who recommended this book to me, but thanks. .Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing was a great read. It broke the sort of blarg feeling I'd been having with fiction lately. I mean, it wasn't the best book evah, but it hit the spot, well several of them. First, I love vampires. Second, I love folklore. So any book that combines the two is going to have some win for me. Third, I love, love, love practical, capable heroines and thus I absolutely adored Jenica. And last, but certainly not least, I adore books about family relationships. The book was much too short to go into  as much depth about the sisters' relationships with each other as I would have liked, honestly, the supernatural stuff could have taken up waaaay less of the book and I still would have been enchanted because I loved Jenica and her family, but, be that as it may, it still satisfied me, especially the bits about how people perceive daughters when there are more than one. There is a part when Tatiana, who is identified as the breathtakingly beautiful one says something like,":They call me the beautiful one, as if beaufiful is all that I am and the only thing I can be." I totally get this, not because I'm the beautiful one in the family, my sister is. All our lives she been the gorgeous one, the hot one, the pretty one and I've been the smart one and it's like these characteristics are the only definition of personhood we have. I feel bad because Heather definitely got the raw end of the deal. I just realized that recently. I always, always, always wanted to be the pretty one, the one who was petted and treated specially because of how pretty they were, my sister got that, I did not. I was jealous as hell of her until quite recently. It took two things to dissolve that and make me really, really look at my sister and see how hard she can haven it. The first was the realization that although I will never be called beautiful by anyone who is honest, and/or not Ryan, I am far from unattractive, even with the extra weight I've put on. The second thing was a story that my sister told. She'd been in contact with a manager at some law firm for quite some time. The guy really, really wanted to give her an internship or something like that and thought  that she looked awesome on paper, which she does indeed and is in fact quite capable, charming, and ruthless, perfect for a law firm, right? Well, when he finally met her in public, he sorta stopped being interested. She is puzzled, I am not. My sister is gorgeous and gorgeous women are often put down and thought of as dumb. Attractive women get away with a lot of things, I also know this from my sister, because while she is gorgeous and smart and charming, she is also self-centered and can be quite ruthless, she has used her looks more than once to get men to do what she wants. I've seen, I don't know  if she does in consciously, but she does. But, I've also seen her dismissed because of how pretty she is. That's rough, I got the better end of the deal being known as the smart sister. So I appreciated that aspect of the story very well. I also adored Jenica's relationship with her frog, Gogu. Of course I would, it was charming and I always kinda liked the frog prince and wished that the princess had been a little nicer to the poor thing, so lo, when Jenica and Gogu came along, I was thrilled. Also, I really, really appreciated that Marillier didn't focus on the vampire Sorrow and Tatiana's love all that much. It would have been easy, considering how attractive they both are and how popular the star-crossed, hopelessly doomed, true wuv conquers all themes are. But she didn't, and I suspect that's because mostly, these things are boring, narrative-wise. Jenica witnesses Sorrow and Tatiana looking hopelessly into each other's eyes, completely consumed by each other, in apparent melancholy rapture, completely silent, I was like thank the story gods that this is about Jenica and not Tatiana because I was beginning to enjoy this book and I don't know how much of that I could have taken. Mostly because although I liked Tatiana, ethereal, waify creature that she was, I found Sorrow completely and utterly boring. Until the end, when we finally learn why he won't smile. Also, did I mention that I love love stories about best friends? Well I do, I am selfish and am always pleased when a relationship looks a lot like mine and Ryan's. So Mariliier got points for that.

All in all, exceptionally adorable and really fast-paced. I liked it. Anyone read her Sevenwaters stuff? Is it worth checking out?

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I liked this one, though others had problems with it. I thought the sequel was pretty decent, but also had some fairly major problems with it. The Sevenwaters books are very good.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

I did enjoy Wildwood Dancing, alot, although I would've been much happier had it been a family drama with supernatural elements and not a supernatural drama with family problems.

I am definitely going to seek out teh Sevenwaters books, though. Marillier seems to have broken my streak of not liking any of the fiction I've picked up lately.