What I'm Reading This Week

For various reasons, I’ve been finding it very difficult to review as of late. Some of it has been that I have been disappointed with many of the books that have crossed my path, or I’m reading the book so far ahead of publication that I have to wait to publish, and of course time is an issue—I’m just plain busy.

In an effort to maintain some degree of criticism I’m going to attempt to map out some of the titles I’m reading each week and a few of my thoughts. If I really love or hate something I’m sure I’ll be moved to write an in depth critique, but until my schedule opens up a bit, I’m going to give this way a try.

Right now I’ve bumped my usual reading quotient down to 3 books a week. So, here’s what’s on my desk, night stand, and bedside floor this week.

Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay (Release Date: July 23, 2013)
I’m all sorts of fairy tale driven these days, and since I’ve had the misfortune in the last few weeks to read a truly horrid fairy story (The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani—interesting premise, poor execution, and putrid ending) I was both eager and reluctant to pick-up another fairy tale inspired novel. Yet Of Beast and Beauty, which is of course a retelling of Beauty and the Beast (one of my all-time favorites) has an interesting twist that actually worked for me. In this version the hero and heroine are descendants of humans who escaped to an alien world. Isra, is a blind princess confined to her lonely tower, and Gem, a mutated boy trying to save his dying people, are the protagonists of this story, but who is the “Beauty” and who is the “Beast” is rather cleverly played with. I would recommend this one—original twist on an old tale, an entertaining and fun read.

Towering by Alex Flinn (Release Date: May 14, 2013)
Another revisionist look at a fairy tale. Towering is a Rapunzel-esque story of a broken boy, a hidden diary, and a girl possessed of magic hair locked in a tower. Flinn, the author of several other fairy tales re-workings, including the well-known Beastly, has an interesting concept with Towering, but the plot gets bogged down with bad dialogue, and an utter lack of mystery. The plot is fairly easy to figure out, and sadly it’s not really a plot worth figuring out. This one was simply put, a disappointment.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman (Out Now)
I’m a big fan of Forman’s first two novels If I Stay and its sequel/companion Where She Went—I’m interested to see what she does outside of that particular world. Preliminary reviews have been quite good, so we shall see.


Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer (Release Date: February 5, 2013)
Like The Paris Wife and Loving Frank, Frances and Bernard is a novel inspired by a real life relationship, this one being between Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell (although they are not characters in the book as is the case with the former), and told through letters. I’m reading this at the same time as the Forman book. It will be interesting to compare the two romantic themes from two very different eras (today and the 1950’s) by an “adult” author and a “teen” author.


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"Me Before You"

Have you ever picked up a novel expecting it to be a great read, but instead find yourself being pummeled with a “message”? You know the type, the ones where some highly publicized real life event is bastardized by a fiction writer in an attempt to capitalize on the sensation, or tell the other side of the story, or worse, push a personal agenda in the guise of thoughtful fiction. If you’ve ever read a Jodi Picoult book I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Picoult fans, please don’t get up in arms, I’ve read, and enjoyed a few of those very books, but being smashed in the head with a hammer loses its appeal after a while. So, unless it’s done in a very tongue and cheek manner (thank you Max Barry) I try to avoid hot button novels.

Jojo Moyes, author of The Last Letter from Your Lover, a book I enjoyed, has produced with her newest novel Me Before You, a hot button novel, in that the story tackles the issue of assisted suicide. Usually, this has me running to me pile in search of something else to read, but in the case of Moyes’ work, what could have been a politically and socially fired look at suicide and Dignitas (a non-profit Swiss assisted dying group that helps those with terminal illness and severe physical and mental illnesses die through the aid of doctors), what readers get instead is a moving portrait of lost dreams, family, friendship, and unlikely love. Me Before You is the story of Louisa Clark and Will Traynor. At the end of her financial rope, 26 year old Louisa takes a job as companion to Will, a wealthy go-getter and thrill seeker, who is now a quadriplegic with little joy in his life, a large chip on his shoulder, and a far-reaching plan to end his suffering. As a reluctant friendship ensues, Lou must find a way to teach Will that he still has a life worth living.

This is a touching tearjerker that manages to display humor, love, and warmth. The characters are well-drawn, showing complexity that is rarely present in these types of books. Their chemistry is a blend of fire cracker and over-enthusiastic childlike behavior, that creates a constant tug of war for the readers, drifting emotionally from embarrassed discomfort, gut-clenching laughter, snide snickers, misty eyes, and gulping tears; a mixture that works to enrapture and captivate through the novel’s beautifully written conclusion.

What easily could have been a story where an author shoves her opinion down the readers’ throats becomes a wonderfully touching narrative that presents the information and conclusion softly, allowing us to digest and process in our own ways. Author Moyes handles a rather controversial subject with a deft and a respectful hand; a thoughtful way to approach such a difficult topic, one which is too infrequently used by mega-authors such as Picoult. So, if you are looking for a novel that approaches a real concept and handles it humanely, with three-dimensional characters you grow to love, scars and all, Me Before You is your book. A quietly riveting novel from beginning to end.


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Kate Morton Fandom

People are creatures of habit and to some extent, at least in terms of entertainment, fandom. This is seen in how movies, television shows, actors, music, bands, etc… are inhaled and spit out by a clamoring public. How else could there be four Pirates of the Caribbean movies (please don’t tell me you actually thought they were good)? The same concept holds for books and their authors. Even if they are not “great” or “avid” readers, everyone seems to have their favorite authors. These are the writers whose books we immediately purchase no matter the subject or genre. Some people are hooked on Martin (George R.R., that is), some on Michael Chabon, others veer towards James Patterson, Danielle Steel (don’t worry, I’m not judging you…at least in this blog), while other still are hooked on writers from our past, like Steinbeck, Austen, Nabokov, Hemingway, or one of the Bronte’s—who may not be writing anymore, but as soon as a new annotated version of Lolita, or illustrated Wuthering Heights is released, watch out, those fans are there. I have both witnessed and participated in this phenomenon. My grandmother was a big Jane Austen fan, and upon her death I found multiple copies of each Austen book (we are talking 4 or 5 copies of just Pride and Prejudice alone), as well as just about any book about Austen, her style, her home life—even a décor book—that could be imagined. That’s dedication! Now, I have my authors too, working in the book world, how can I not. My book shelves pay homage to writers like Mary Stewart, Max Barry (all but Machine Man, which I read, but couldn’t bring myself to keep), Tana French, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and Carol O’Connell. Another author whose titles grace my shelves—and is really the topic of this blog—is Australian novelist Kate Morton.

Kate Morton is one of those novelists who create stories that sweep across time, weaving in and out of eras, switching between narrative voices and views with profound skill. Her four books The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, and the newly released The Secret Keeper, all use the devise of flitting between a modern story and one from the past, by creating an intriguing mystery that leads its modern day heroine to delve into the past in order to unearth the truth. Morton’s pasts are tragic. The characters suffer—for love, for war, for sisterhood, motherhood—for life itself, creating an interesting bond between not only the “mystery-solver”, but also the reader, as both protagonist and reader have the past slowly unfurled for them. It is easy within this type of storytelling to run to the melodramatic, but Morton is adept at running on that knife edge, providing an emotional core to her plot without falling into the stereotype. Kate Morton is a magician with a pen (or, more accurately in this day and age, Word Processor). Her characters are flawed, three-dimensional beings and her settings are richly defined without dragging the reader into a dull description of the landscape that more often leads to skimming, than appreciation. While her mystery plotlines, or rather twists are a touch on the predictable side, it is easy to overlook when confronted with such a rich tapestry of character and place.

In her newest novel, The Secret Keeper, Morton excels at connecting the story of Laurel, a well-respected older actress, with that of a trio of young people living in London during the Blitz. The novel interlaces the lives of Vivian, Dolly and Jimmy, switching between their narratives with that of Laurel as she struggles to unravel the mystery surrounding her mother and the long ago death of a visiting stranger at her home. In a time where I have been struggling to find a book I really love, The Secret Keeper has been a welcome breath of fresh air. Along with another of Morton’s books, The Forgotten Garden, The Secret Keeper has created characters and storylines that have enthralled me. I really can’t do them justice in explaining how Morton’s characters ignite a spark of compassion, an emotional link really, that is difficult to find in other novels. Her books are much more than good stories, they are in a sense, epics; not so much in the sense of something like the Ken Follett books or Gone with the Wind, but in the sense that her creations, these beings developed in her imagination, are really brought to life in a way that leaves vestiges of them in your mind long after you’ve put the book back on the shelf.

So, you readers with supreme author allegiance and a yen for good fiction, here’s my challenge—pick-up a Kate Morton book, read it, enjoy it and then move on to the next. Before you know it you will have a Kate Morton section of your book shelf too.

 
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Classic Hollywood Revisited

Iconic Hollywood stars have frequently been the subjects of books. There is always a new bio or photo book featuring the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, or a new biographical look at Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, or Joan Crawford; even Hedy Lamarr got her intellectual due in Richard Roades’ Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. In Fiction, there too have been glimpses into the possible lives of these larger than life figures; from Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ look at Errol Flynn in Glitter Baby, Marilyn Monroe in multiple books, including Joyce Carol Oates’ Blonde and the current The Empty Glass by J.I. Baker, Louise Brooks in Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone, to Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason in Don DeLillo’s Underworld. The point is, celebrities, particularly those from the halcyon days of yesteryear are frequent subjects of the written word. Many of these works are interesting and informative, some preposterous and maddening, but mainly they are a type of book that draws readers looking for sensationalism or a glimpse at an era that never ceases to fascinate. So, I was not too surprised to come across several books this summer that dealt with the classic Hollywood scene, but I was surprised by their quality, particularly that of two novels, Emma Straub’s Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures and Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins. The books are incredibly different in context and presentation, deal with two different eras of Hollywood, but both are well-written snap shots of a time and people that continue to fascinate us.

While Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures does not feature a real-life celebrity, it does perfectly recreate the feeling of the studio-machine driven age of cinema. From the height of the studio system in the 30’s and 40’s to the revamped look of the late 70’s, this is a novel that brilliantly evokes the life and times of a studio-made star. Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures follows young Elsa Emerson, a girl raised within her parent’s Wisconsin theater company who plots her way to Hollywood and is remade for eventual stardom as the glamorous Laura Lamont. This is more than a novel, it plays out like a 1950’s film, or even one of those epic studio stories (some true, some fabricated) of how someone became a star. In fact, I had a hard time not picturing someone like Lana Turner in my mind while reading this novel. It unfolds like a brilliant melodrama—a suicide, teen marriage, divorce, marriage to a studio head, stardom, age—and yet, this novel is wonderfully written, not a dramatic soap opera, but a sort of love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood and its products, the movie stars. A deceptively simple story, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures is surprisingly gripping in its honest humanity, and cleverly written characters. Straub’s obvious love of this time period within the movie-making world helps to round it out presenting a well-thought out, interesting novel with remarkable understanding of the era, Hollywood studio system, and what it meant to be an aging female film star during this time period. In all it’s a fresh and charming new novel, perfect for classic movie fans.

Beautiful Ruins is an entirely different beast. Unlike the linear third-person limited narrative of Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, Beautiful Ruins is told via a multiple third-person narrative that bounces not only between characters, but also through time, place, and at points leaves the primary story to show excerpts from fictionalized books and screenplays. From 1962 Italy and the filming of Cleopatra (the most expensive US movie), to current Hollywood, with sections in Scotland, London, Seattle, and Idaho thrown in; Walter’s unique style creates not only a touching story of a love that could have been, but also a deftly drawn portrait of the demise of the movie star as an untouchable god (pre extreme-paparazzi), and the transition from epic films to reality garbage, lacking any sense of prestige and glamour. It adroitly shows the inner workings of film publicists and producers looking to exploit everything and anything to sell their products, the turmoil created by the desire to be famous, post-traumatic stress, and the general narcissism and technological dependence of the current generation. On the Hollywood front, actor Richard Burton is takes a co-starring role—his actions literally spur the plot of the entire story—his drunken escapades, remarkable talent, and on-set affair with co-star Elizabeth Taylor (prior to their 2 marriages) are imaginatively recreated, using much of the lore and fact that fans have come to associate with the couple’s tumultuous relationship. The addition of an ill actress (a fictional character who is part of the Cleopatra cast), an alcoholic former solider/writer, a canny and amoral publicity grunt, and a young Italian trying to save his dying hotel, help to create a setting that is almost film-like itself in its capture of drama and occasional bouts of comedic flair. The sections taking place in current times are less thrilling, far more irritating in view of the younger characters’ self-absorption—one is looking to sell a ridiculous screenplay based on the Donner Party, the other is a production mogul’s development assistant/lackey with a dependence on data fixes and a porn addicted boyfriend—but Walters uses them effectively in bringing together the threads of the story as it bounces between decades and characters. In all, Beautiful Ruins is intriguing, very stylized in its presentation, and a wonderful look at Hollywood’s transition from its Golden Age.

There are so many books published dealing with this theme that it can be daunting to take on the task, particularly for a fan of classic films, not looking to see their favorite star/era/movie diminished in stature, but taking up either of these novels, whether it be the stylized Beautiful Ruins, or the homage to the studio system of yesteryear within Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, readers are sure to find pleasure within their pages. Great reads for readers of varying styles and a love of interesting characters.
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Nothing but Shadows

I read a lot of series. Not by design, but I get a book, I like it, and lo and behold I come to the end and, surprise-it’s a series. The past couple of months I’ve reached the end of a couple of fun series, The Parasol Protectorate being one, and have been lucky enough to also land the ARC’s of many sequels in my series repertoire. I love getting sequels, but as I have stated before there is a certain on edge feeling that goes with them. Namely, you ask yourself “is this book going to make or break my new favorite series?” (see Curse of the Sequel). That question has unfortunately been answered for one of my most touted new series of 2011.

Ashes by Ilsa Bick was a book I really stood behind in September of 2011. I blogged about it, I tried to put it into hands, both young and old, and with a cliffhanger ending, I genuinely could not wait for the next book. So, when a copy of Shadows, its sequel arrived on my desk I was ecstatic and couldn’t wait to dive in where I had left off. Which is exactly what I did, only it seemed as though I was diving into something wholly unfamiliar, and gruesomely unappealing.

What I loved about Ashes was Bick’s great twist on the post-apocalyptic zombie-esque thriller, her young characters were forced to survive in unimaginable conditions, but somehow they all managed. The addition of the elderly survivors, and a village straight of The Lottery only added to the appeal. The characters were interesting, and the concept of an EMP bombing aftermath was really ingenious. So, how could the sequel be so bad?

Shadows was a choppy mess—over-ambitious in its goal to cover so many narratives and horrifically violent. Basically, it’s like Rob Zombie took over the writing and tried to add as many bloody cannibalistic torture scenes as he could. Let me preface this upcoming rant with this—I am not a prude, or a wimp. I was a teenager who loved horror movies, wrote a twenty-page research paper about the evolution of the slasher film in college, and don’t typically shy away from watching, or reading about violence. That being said, even I have my limits and this book’s gratuitous use of torture, graphic cannibal scenes, and its villainization of, believe it or not, Vietnam Vets, has not only pushed me to the limit, but well past. There is no happiness in this book. I can deal with that. I can deal with bleak, if it’s delivered within the brilliantly written confines of a book like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, but the lengths to which this author goes to instill upon the reader the horrors of this post-apocalyptic world, and the utter lack of humanity presented within these Vietnam Vets, who appear more like Nazi doctors experimenting on young survivors for “knowledge”, is just plain sickening. There is no other way to put it and when you add in an uneven narrative, and a flimsy attempt at creating an underlying mystery/suspense plot within the confines of a horror novel, you just get a ghastly mess of a book.

In some ways I could excuse the atrocities of this novel, and just shrug it off as a book that’s “not for me”, except for more thing—this is a book written for teenagers, with the words 14 & up printed on the back, and shelved in the teen/young adult section of your local bookstore. I’ve sold Ashes to teens—young teens, and there is no way I would put Shadows in a young person’s hands. I would even be reluctant to do so in an adult’s hands without a major disclaimer and a lot of working to persuade them not to buy it. I’ve also noticed that this book will be marketed with AMC’s Walking Dead—a brilliant series for fans of the genre, and filled with it’s own horrors, but here’s the difference—reading is highly personal, the images take place in your mind, the words in your voice, it’s all very insular in a way, making it far more real than when you watch something similar in the movies and television. I’m sure many people would argue with me, but what I read in this teen novel far more horrified me than anything I’ve seen in The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, or even Doomsday—in which there is a scene where someone is literally barbequed on a spit and fed to a roiling mass of punks. This is mostly because the intimacy of the images in my mind while reading far outweighs the actors scripted portrayals onscreen. I can shut the movie off, but it’s hard to do that with my own imagination.

To say I’m disappointed by Shadows would be an understatement. It is one of the most disappointing sequels I’ve ever come across, and definitely the most gratuitously and unapologetically grotesque in it’s display of violence, particularly torture and Veteran behavior. I not only would never recommend this to someone, but I feel as though I need to revoke my earlier approval of it’s predecessor Ashes, which sadly due to it’s cliffhanger style ending can’t stand on it’s own. I love sharing books, and am saddened to see such a promising series go to hell in a hand basket, but Shadows is a book that just needs to go away.


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Seeing/Reading "The Iliad"

I love going to the theater. It’s my first love. I mean I love books and reading and everything that goes with that, but when push comes to shove theater will get my immediate attention. This might sound odd coming from someone who makes their living from books, someone who on a weekly basis writes on this blog about books and authors, but what many people don’t know is that my background is in theater, and having had the privilege to work, perform in, and study theater for many years I find myself feeling a little lonesome without it in my life on a daily basis. One might ask what a book blogger is doing speaking about theater when she should be discussing The Dog Stars by Peter Heller or some other newer title, but bear with me—I’ll get to the correlation.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to see La Jolla Playhouse’s An Iliad, a re-imagining of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad (the Robert Fagles translation) at the Mandell Weiss Forum. The performance is done in one act (approx. 110 minutes) as a single, yet captivating monologue. The only addition to its storyteller, known simply as “the Poet”, is a musician who interacts musically using a double bass, the metal staircase, and a variety of other small instruments and tools. The musician never speaks, but the power of his music, particularly the double bass, interweaves perfectly with the storytelling, at times overwhelming the audience with its low, occasionally violent sounds that perfectly emulate the hardships of war as described by the Poet. For his turn, the Poet, as played by actor Henry Woronicz, is an intriguing figure, alternating from a hobo-like man pacing about a sparse utilitarian set speaking to the audience as though they were sitting beside him in a way station (there is no fourth wall in this production), to this eloquent poet with a visible and visceral connection to the men within this story that he is compelled to keep repeating to the world. Woronicz and musician Brian Ellingsen perform their material beautifully, bringing the right touches of humor, drama, and horror to this epic retelling. The only fault of the play is the text itself—not that great epic poem The Iliad, or even some of the modern comparisons used to create a better picture for the audience, but in the addition of dialogue that instead of adding to the underlying “horrors of war” theme, rather took audience members out of the tale and into a bit of clock watching. It seemed as though this dialogue, lists really, would just go on and on, destined to bore the audience, despite the excellent delivery by Woronicz. For example, at one point the Poet lists off every war since the Trojan War-every war. At first I was impressed at the research that was done to give the audience a chronological listing of so many wars, many I had no recollection of hearing about in my history classes, but after what felt like several minutes I found myself just waiting to hear the end so the play could go on already. I looked at my watch a couple of times here. Now maybe I’m missing the point, perhaps the director/writer wanted to desensitize the audience in much the same way our culture has become desensitized to war and violence—in which case they succeeded with me—but overall that and a few more stanzas like it, took me and those people around me right out of tale and into time tables and thoughts that perhaps 80 minutes would have been a more ideal time. Whatever my thoughts, this small criticism certainly does not detract from the fantastic performances of the actor and musician, and the brilliance of their natural and captivating storytelling skills.

 So, how do I possible connect a mini-theater review to make it relevant to a book blog? Let me try.

I don’t really remember much about reading The Iliad. I know it was in 7th grade and we followed it up with Beowulf. I remember more about the mythology; Paris, the apple, Helen, Achilles and his heel, but the nuts and bolts have left me. I’m far more familiar with its follow-up The Odyssey, both because I read it at an older age, and because a fellow student and I took key scenes and rewrote them in modern tongue for a performance back in college (see I can be a dramaturge too). But The Iliad, that was one I never did revisit. Having seen this production—hearing the parts of the epic poem as it was meant to be presented—orally, I couldn’t help, but be curious about the text itself. Enter the Fagles translation. This is a translation I have sold, ordered, and found for countless high school students. I haven’t read it, I haven’t really had an interest, but I know that it’s the preferred edition of teachers in La Jolla, Ca and after witnessing it in performance, I just might go back and peruse its depths, and then again, I might not. In some ways I’m hesitant to reread this work—I’m not shying away from the text itself, I’m not a 16 year old student any longer and certainly don’t balk at ancient texts, but after hearing and seeing Henry Woronicz’s performance I am reminded that much like Shakespeare, these works were not meant to be read to one’s self, like one would read Dickens, but they are meant to be performed, the words given life by an actor, poet, or musician; no longer merely a book, but a reenacting, a personal experience; which is far more cathartic that any words on print. Now I’ve gone and hurt myself by basically telling readers to watch, not read. Please don’t take this to mean that in the future you should see the movie (or in this case, the play), and just forgo the book! Instead what I recommend is to see this wonderful performance, and take all of the actor’s despair, anger, humor, humanity; tuck it into a small corner of your soul and then pick-up this epic poem, allowing yourself to resurrect those feelings when reading of the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus, the death of Hector, and the fall of Troy. I think you will find it will move you beyond a reading experience, into a whole new understanding of an ancient text that still bears so much weight in the affairs of today.

It is my hope that those of you reading this will do two things—see the play and read the book. Not to sound too much like an advertisement, but I think it will change the way you see the text.

So, moral of the blog—do the opposite of what your teacher told you to do. See the play, read the poem, get a whole new outlook on Homer. And maybe I’ll pick-up that Fagles edition and give it another whorl.


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Lost in Persuasion

I’m about to say something that is sacrilegious to many readers. I am not a big Jane Austen fan. Go ahead and gasp, throw something, or think belittling thoughts about me and my reading preferences, but I’m just not. People who know me are probably shocked by this statement, most likely because I own every Jane Austen novel—sometimes multiple copies (Pride & Prejudice), but that’s mostly due to gifts, inheritance, and an odd feeling that every bibliophile is required to own them (also they tend to be pretty). The thing is, I like the stories, the characters, the witty banter, but I tend to tune out during the prose—you see, I prefer the movies. Go ahead and curse me again, I understand. I love the screen versions of Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park, but I just can’t extend that love to their written forms. I’m not saying I hate the books, far from it; I just don’t love them as other readers do.

That being said, for some reason I have always been drawn to Persuasion and most particularly to the books that try to reimagine that narrative. For some reason I am utterly drawn to that tale. I don’t know if it’s the slight tang of melodrama that reels me in, the love-loss story of Ann Elliot and Captain Wentworth, or just a connection with Ann on some subconscious level, that draws me in every time. Whatever the reason, be it psychological on my part, or that it is entertaining for me on a level the other novels cannot attain to, I can’t get enough of Persuasion.

In that vein, I have, over the last several years, found some reimaginings of this novel that have brought me great enjoyment. One is The Family Fortune by Laurie Horowitz, a contemporary look at the tale that takes place in the literary world between the daughter of the founders of an impoverished, yet famous foundation established to help budding writers and an author, once spurned for his lowly station—who is now highly successful. The perfect mix of comic and tragic, this modern romance is a wonderful blend of “chick-lit” and Austen homage.

Another, a teen-aimed retelling with a post-apocalyptic style twist, For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund (release date 6/12/12) is a fun reintroduction to Ann and Wentworth’s love story. Set in a distant future, where the destruction of scientists’ genetic engineering has rendered many of the population into “Reduced”—people with severe mental handicaps, “Luddites” now rule what is left of the world, living as though it were once again the 19th century. Elliot North, the daughter of an esteemed Luddite family falls in love with Kai, a “Post”—descendant of the “Reduced”—lacking any of the malformations of his ancestors, but refuses to run away with him for the sake of saving her ancestral estate and those people who are dependant upon it for life. When years later an impoverished Elliot is forced to take on Post borders, she finds herself once again in Kai’s presence, but now he is the prosperous and famous Captain Malakai Wentworth, filled with a heart-wrenching loathing for Elliot and her past decisions. Despite the post-apocalyptic theme, this book is remarkably true to Austen’s original narrative. She faithfully recreates Ann, her struggles, her narcissistic family, and her seemingly unreciprocated love for Wentworth in the characters of Elliot and Kai. Author Diana Peterfreund was able to evoke in me the same feelings of frustration with (Kai) Wentworth’s actions and his persecution of (Elliot) Ann’s actions. I cursed Kai, and wept for a despondent Elliot, wanted her family packed off to Timbuktu, and hoped for a dramatic reconciliation (although, it was never really in doubt). All the things that drew me to Persuasion I found alive within this book. The addition of futuristic science was also interesting and innovative, recreating the past within a new world, while holding onto the essence of Austen’s original plot. Despite the horrid title—I consistently mess up the title when talking about this book to people, because it is just too convoluted, regardless of it’s underlying meaning to the story—I found myself being drawn in just as much as I was with Austen.

So, while I still stumble through the works of Austen, hoping to someday catch the fever that enthralls so many, I will remain on the outside looking in on enthusiastic readers. Who knows, maybe there is hope for Jane and me in forthcoming years, but for the time being I will hold tightly to my enjoyment of Persuasion and it’s many reincarnations. For now, I will be happy with the newest, For Darkness Shows the Stars, will revisit The Family Fortune, and await whatever the literary world throws at me in the future.


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