waytoomanybooks's reviews
140 reviews

What an odd, yet compelling, play! I enjoyed the weirdness of both the plot and the main characters of this “bottle episode” drama that centers on Marchbanks being absolutely convinced that his boss’ (Morell) wife (Candida) is secretly in love with him.

So, let’s meet our main castmembers:

Morell is delightful. I’d love to have him as a friend. He’s sweet, patient, and has a great sense of humor and ease about hin. Even when he is made to feel anxious, he handles everything well. Everyone is making his day so fucking weird, and he’s just doing his best to take it all in stride.

Marchbanks is an 1894 incel, and he sucks so bad. He can’t stop fucking up. He’s an absolute trainwreck. He’s so stupid and annoying. 

Burgess (Candida’ father) sucks but in a way that isn’t interesting. He’s such a British stereotype. I kept picturing him in jodhpurs and a pith helmet or in a top hat, tails, and a monocle. Like a villain from a Joseph Conrad novel.

Candida is stuck between a rock and a hard place. She has so many conflicting societal expectations thrown on her by Marchbanks and her father, but not, surprisingly, by her husband. She’s clearly in love with her husband, and she has a good deal of agency, too! She also seems to take things in great stride, though in a way completely different from her husband. She’s kind of aloof and mocking, which I like, but her attitude doesn’t quite seem to gel with Morell in this play. But they seems to love each other regardless, and I find that very sweet!

They’re all great characters!

The line that hit me like a sharp slap to the face was:

“To find [Morell] beginning to fear [Marchbanks] whom he does not respect afflicts him bitterly” (39)

. God, I wanted to punch Marchbanks in the mouth!

The twist, however, being that

everyone is apparently in love with our leading couple

is kind of absurd? But in a weird and fun way? This was a fun read.

If you know anything about the “Manson Family,” then you’ll know the beats and settings of this novel all too well: A ranch of runaways (of mostly women and girls); a stand-in for Dennis Wilson; “Russel” as the failed musician turned cult leader; the random, vicious, senseless murders, etc. It reads like a memoir by someone from the “inside,” even though it is all fictionalized.

I think the book leans <i>too</i> heavily on the history of the “Manson Family” though. My familiarity with the details and its reliance on those details means that it cannot stand on its own for me. I don’t usually go for true crime stories (real or fake), but the podcast <i>You Must Remember This</i> did a miniseries about them, and the host lays out all of these details quite starkly.

Additionally, the pacing feels off at points. Cline will go on and on about with details describing scenes of no actual importance but then will skimp on details on scenes that needed to be more fully brought to life and explored. As for details about Evie...

I was disappointed that adult Evie doesn’t seem to have matured very much from her teen self, who is the primary storyteller of this novel. But perhaps that is the point: Evie will never be free from the worst summer of her early adolescence. I wish we had gotten to know Evie a little better. What are her hopes and dreams, as a child and now as an adult? What did she learn? What would she say to her younger self? What would she do differently? How is she feeling?

<b>Spoiler within:</b>

I kept expecting adult Evie to impart wisdom onto us, the readers or onto Sasha, who closely mirrors her younger self, but she never does, even when she witnesses the toxicity of Sasha’s relationship first-hand

.

So what <i>did</i> I like?

I really like Cline’s writing style, and I like the way she brings us into Evie’s point of view: her thought processes, her rationalizations, her desire to escape, etc. It’s also a quick read. I’m a slow reader, but I was able to get through it in just a few sittings. I would generally recommend this book to those who are looking for something creepy, quick, and immersive, but aren’t looking for something with any deep substance or message.

What a gripping tale! I can see why this is Christie’s best-loved work. I couldn’t put it down! I don’t often go for mysteries, but this one is excellent. The tension is palpable, and the conceit of following the “Ten Little Soldiers” nursery rhyme was inspired. I loved that each and every character was especially awful in such unique ways. And I absolutely did not see the twist at the end in which we find out the identity of the killer. I also love that this novel involves neither Poirot nor Marple. I strongly dislike mysteries, thrillers, and detective novels that have a lead detective because what’s the fun if a character has a 100% success rate? So that fact alone got it a lot of points from me!

The only reason this is a 4.5 star book and not a 5 star book is that

one killer killing off ten people—directly and indirectly—without detection and without suspicion was a bit too farfetched to me. And the way in which the killer obtained his victims was also a bit too far passed my suspension of disbelief. I mean, it just seems a bit too tidy that the killer came by the victims’ profiles so easily and arranged their deaths so quickly and was successful with each murder

.

But still, I enjoyed this novel immensely, and I highly recommend it!

While there isn’t much substance to the character in the lais, there is a lot to learn from the tropes and themes within the lais themselves.  From this collection, you get a small look into the values, morals, and interests of the medieval French folk who were reading or listening to the lais being read/performed. But really, the beautiful thing about these lais is how special it is to read stories that people were reading ~800 years ago. I am injecting with this book in a way that would be unimaginable to the original audience, and yet here I am/here we are, talking about them and these stories. It’s moments like these that make me happy I became an English major. It provides me wonderful moments such as these!

I hate to say it—because Joan of Arc is near and dear to me—but this play is quite silly, bordering on cringey. And for a play titled Saint Joan, we never get to see her in action. All she and everyone else in the play do is talk, which is a shame because Joan known for being a young woman of action. On top of this, the writing leaves a lot to be desired. I expected much more than I got.

I’ve fully re-embraced my love of Tudor historical fiction since engaging with Wolf Hall—the show and the novels—at the end of last year, and I’ve gone out looking for more works that of the same quality. I have definitely found it within A Man for All Seasons. The play is, by nature, immersive in Thomas’ point of view, and it’s truly heart-breaking to watch his story unfold when one already knows how it ends.

The executions Henry metes out never get any easier to read about or watch, play, book, show, movie, etc. Every time, it makes me feel a bit sick. I think that is why people keep coming back to the people and narratives associated with his reign. It’s like when you lose a tooth, and your tongue keeps going to the sore spot, or when you press on a bruise to see if it still hurts.

Bolt’s prose is sharp, and though his stage directions and set designs are spare, they clearly and easily define the world Thomas is living in, and you can’t help but feel as though you are there with him as it all unfolds and unravels.

The first time I read this book, I was a sophomore in high school, and this was one of the few assigned readings that I actually completed. This is my first reread of the novel—fifteen years later—and I can now say that it still ranks highly among my favorite classic novels! I enjoyed following the incredible/unbelievable journeys of the three narrators, and I can now much better appreciate the Romantic, Gothic, and Transcendentalist elements that Shelley uses to weave her narratives. I think I’ll always be blown away by what Shelley accomplished as a woman of her time and how much of herself she puts into her work. I don’t believe I have anything new under the sun to say about Frankenstein. All I can say is that it truly does live up to the bar against which it is set.

When I read one of "the classics," I pause and remind myself that I'm about to step into a different time with different people who held different and sometimes/often offensive beliefs. A "classic" may not be a good story with good characters, but instead may be a good window into the time and place it was written and set in. And "classics" are also saddled with the moniker of being "over-hyped." With this in mind, I can firmly say that I thoroughly enjoyed Dracula! I didn't feel like I was stepping into a totally unfamiliar world because Stoker is descriptive without making the reader feel bogged down with details or flowery descriptions. I think the characters, while quite overwrought, were fully fleshed out *rim shot* people, and I'm pleased to say that this includes the women! Dracula is very much worth the hype. I can see why it's maintained cultural relevance and why its tropes and themes remain popular after 127 years. I was waiting for the mythical "right" time to read this book, and I'm glad I got to enjoy it during spooky season!

In Bring Up the Bodies, Cromwell has decided to ditch Anne Boleyn. His demeanor around her changes completely and irreversibly. It almost feels like a 180°, but if you look back, the bread crumbs become more obvious. I think the book fleshes this out considerably. There were many points that made me stop and have a mini meltdown, (which you can see in my liveblogs lol).

It’s so wild how quickly and seemingly effortlessly he can throw his weight behind someone, be it More, Anne, or Jane. He can so easily flip a switch when he needs to, when it is advantageous to do so. He does show respect to More and not to Anne, but I think it is only because with More, he has these tiny moments from his childhood with him. Moments that weren’t what I’d call happy or positive, but were maybe inspiring to Cromwell? Like More’s life as a young, well-off academic who was clearly going places showed him someone he could aspire to be. Through More, he learns the power of words, of learning them (he asks More if he was at his dictionary when he brought him his bread) and using them to get ahead. I think he feels he owes More something for that, however small and ultimately meaningless.

But he feels he owes Anne nothing. I’m sure he would say, “What did she give me other than headaches?” He would argue Anne didn’t make him, Henry did. Henry made them both, so if Henry wants to unmake Anne, well, he’d better take Henry’s side so that he doesn’t unmake him, too. She’s become a liability to him. By falling from grace in Henry’s eyes, that puts him in danger, so fuck her. Why should she get respect when he’s in danger?

I don’t think he genuinely believes the misogynistic crap Henry spews. When Henry is having a panic attack about “How did she know I’d like sex positions that weren’t just missionary?” Cromwell is mentally rolling his eyes, but physically nodding along because agreeing is expedient. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with anyone liking or enjoying sex as a man or a woman, but hating women is convenient and expedient and gets the result he wants, so he goes along with it. Which is it’s own brand of misogyny, but in a somehow more fucked up way. Like he believes in women being educated. He is pained when Jane Rochford tells him about her awful marriage. He admires Meg More’s talents. He mourns his wife and daughters constantly. He is actively betraying his own beliefs and values because it gets him what he wants. He’ll say anything to get himself where he wants to be.

This series is a stunning work of brilliance. I cannot wait to read the final novel, and I am eagerly awaiting the release of the second season of Wolf Hall!

Ooooooo, this book, it’s sequels, and the show have devoured my life! I’m obsessed with it.

This is unequivocally the best novel I have read in the last decade. Rarely does a book like this come along and completely change your brain chemistry, but this is just such a one. I cannot overstate the sumptuous descriptions, the thorough characterization of Cromwell, and the faithfulness to the historical time line of Tudor England.

In this first novel you watch Thomas Cromwell and Anne Boleyn’s meteoric rise, Thomas from peasant to peer, and Anne from Lady to Queen. You get excited for them...until you remember what happens to them both. You know what happens. We all do. And it overshadows *everything*. Can you be truly happy for them when you know the man who has raised them up so high will also bring about their downfall? God, it’ll break your heart in such an achingly good way.

Normally when a book so wonderful comes my way, I cannot put it down and move through it quickly, but for *Wolf Hall*, I couldn’t help but stretch out my reading of it over the course of several months. This is a book to be savored. There is nothing else quite like it, except, perhaps, Hilary Mantel’s other works within this trilogy, though I know the events and prose will utterly devastate me. Even the t.v. show adaptation blows me away! I cannot recommend this book/series/t.v. show enough.