Review originally posted at Heartscent Reads

I will just keep my review short because I really am disappointed with this one. After reading the first book, I thought, “Yeah, this book is promising. I might give book 2 a chance.” I was sad with how it turned out.

There were a lot of love scenes in there that makes me cringe and I don’t exactly get the point of Aimee forgiving Keegan that fast. I mean, she got mad, Keegan went to her, explained and then she forgives. That easy???? They were adults but doesn’t act like it, in my honest opinion. Also, I have read a bunch of grammatical and typo errors, still. Which are also evident on the first book. That’s an eye sore, seriously.

On the good note, the story was cute. I would love to have a castle built for me too. The idea of “stars” was lovely. I swoon for a while along the middle part of the story which made me continue reading until the end expecting something good will happen but to no luck.

The story lacks, “wow factor”. I can’t even remember most of what I read from this one. It just didn’t stick. It just wasn’t for me.

I've read a couple of other novels by Rose Tremain, and I've always liked her work, but this was the first of her books to really wow me. I thought this book was amazing. It's told from the point of view of a foolish sycophant at the court of Charles II. But Robert Merivel transforms over the course of the book, and the transformation is thoroughly believable.

The writing in Restoration is quite different than Tremain's usual style; it's told in the first-person and the voice reminded me a bit of Sarah Waters's work (although the plot itself is nothing like anything Waters might write). The voice and period details felt very authentic to me. Most importantly, Merivel feels like a real person, and I never felt that Tremain was sneering at him. He does foolish things, but Tremain never loses sight of the human underneath, and that focus is what makes this book really work.

Tremain intended this book as a commentary on the excesses of the Eighties, and I think the parallels to consumer culture still work. But even if you ignore the commentary, Restoration works as a marvelous character study of a flawed, vapid, but ultimately redeemable man.

This is one of Rose Tremain's best novels, her ability to create colour, scenery and emotion is brilliant. The film of this is also good, and it was quite pleasant to imagine Robert Downey Jr as I was reading!

My reading of Rose Tremain’s work continues. After listening to Music and Silence I chose another one of her classic historical novels - the one she is most famous for - Restoration.

Most splendidly narrated by Rupert Degas, we are introduced to the young Robert Merivel and his rise and fall through glittering seventeenth-century society.

When a twist of fate delivers an ambitious young medical student to the court of King Charles II, he is suddenly thrust into a vibrant world of luxury and opulence. Blessed with a quick wit and sparkling charm, Robert Merivel rises quickly, soon finding favour with the King, and privileged with a position as 'paper groom' to the youngest of the King's mistresses. But by falling in love with her, Merivel transgresses the one rule that will cast him out from his new-found paradise...

”Tremain’s dazzling tale of intrigue and rivalry amidst the opulence of Stuart England remains the most immersive account of the era available. Robert Merivel, charming and witty yet reckless and impetuous, is a beautifully realised creation and his troubled path through the court of Charles II detailed with bittersweet irony and elegant humour.”

There will be more Rose Tremain to explore because by now her writing has completely captivated me.

m/f

Themes: London, John Pearce, the court of King Charles II, Celia Clemence, Bidnold in Norfolk, Elias Finn, Bedlam, Quakers, Katherine, the Great Plague, 1666 the Great Fire of London, Margaret.

5 Stars

The first half of this book read like an MTV music video version of the 17th century: gaudy clothes, binge drinking, general debauchery. I was disappointed by the superciliousness of Tremain's portrait of her protagonist, Merivel. He was too much of a caricature to be sympathetic or even amusing. But I'd passed the point of no return, it's a slim book, and I retained enough faith in Rose Tremain's tremendous abilities to carry on. I'm so glad I stuck to the task, as Part 2 redeemed the book, parallel to the redemption of the facetious and sniveling Merivel (with the photo of Robert Downey, Jr. conveniently emblazoned on the book's cover, Merivel's voice ran through my head with RDJr's languidly arrogant tones- I'm sure he was perfectly cast).

To reveal more would reveal too much of the plot, which isn't all that deep, but it's worth uncovering on one's own. It won't be for me one of Tremain's more memorable novels, but the latter half restored it to satisfying historical fiction.

There is the most touching moving section in this book that I don't think I'll ever forget. It was the clue to Speaking of Love http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3369205-speaking-of-love and the most poignant (and simple) analysis of the human origins of madness that I've read. The protagonist, Merivel, has become a Quaker and works at an asylum. Without knowing he's going to break his silence at the Meetings, he does. He says, while at the same time trying to stop himself from speaking, that, 'Madness may be born of many things but yet for all except those who are lunatic from their births there was a Time Before, a time when there was no madness in them and that this would be followed by a Growing Time or a Sickening Time, when the madness was coming upon them, precisely as all disease has a Growing Time. ... But what we do not ask, dear Friends, is what were the Footsteps of each case of madness. ... We should try with each one of those in our care to look back into past time and ask them to try to remember how it was to be in the Time Before and what thing or calamity came about to put them into the Sickening Time. And in this way we might discover the imprint of the steps to madness ... .'