The Scarlet Pimpernel (with thoughts from @JenRyland)

Over the summer, the amazing Jen Ryland/YA Romantics and I decided to read a classic together, settling on the 1905 novel The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy in anticipation of Diana Peterfreund's Across a Star-Swept Sea. We'd both read books that twisted the pimpernel story and I'd seen the 1934 film adaptation with Leslie Howard but we had no idea what to really expect.

 The Scarlet Pimpernel Summary:

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a British man who has led many French aristocrats to safety, escaping the French revolutionary bloodlust and saving countless lives, leaving behind a card with a scarlet pimpernel as his trademark. Sir Percy Blakeney is a dull wealthy English baronet who somehow managed to win the heart and hand of Marguerite, the most beautiful and charming woman around. The two could never have anything in common or could they? For in actuality, they are one and the same with Percy cleverly using his dim-witted persona to hide his real identity. This book follows a French agent attempting to smoke out the Pimpernel once and for all, manipulating Marguerite into providing help by threatening her beloved brother.

Our immediate thoughts centered on the language, which is flowery, ornate, over-the-top, very theatrical, fitting its origin as a play. The characters are caricatured and defined by one or two traits that are hammered home over and over again. For example, Percy has thick blond hair and lazy eyes while Marguerite is beautiful, little, and childlike. Still it was easy to read and the plot moves crazy fast. We both feared muddling through some difficult Dickensian passages (he loved the look of his writing, just sayin') but once the book gets going, it keeps going with barely a chance to catch a breath. Again this fits perfectly with its theatrical roots and helps me to imagine how it might look on stage.

Historically it is a very exciting time with all the tumult around the French Revolution and the British desire for stability. Neither of us knows much about the period although we've read other books set during that time (for example A Tale of Two Cities and were able to make some comparisons to that excellent novel such as when the Scarlet Pimpernel disguises himself as a knitter, bringing to mind Madame Defarge's knitting.) Some real-life figures are mentioned but for the most part, it centers on the fictional. As I already mentioned, they're not very deeply-drawn. Though Percy has the secret life, which could potentially add many layers to his personality, they are not explored. Neither does Marguerite get much nuance to her personality. And if the main characters are so sketchily drawn, what hope do the secondary characters have? There are many small amusing moments with them like the British innkeeper who disdains the French but ends up unwittingly drinking with two Frenchmen in disguise.

One of the most interesting aspects ended up being how the pimpernel disguises himself as a Jew for his most daring escapade. As a Jew, he is considered the lowest of lows and the agents tracking him never consider that it could possibly be a disguise. It's a very clever idea, taking advantage of the unquestioned prejudices of those men. However it left me unsettled as I didn't feel it challenged the status quo of Jewish people being considered so low. Deanna Raybourn wrote a fascinating post about this and other instances of antisemitism in fiction.

Overall: I would say we had a lot of fun reading this and it might be good for reluctant classic readers if they give themselves some time to become accustomed to the writing. It is full of action and moves very quickly though the writing style very much dates it.

Check this out:

On Wednesday, Jen will be posting a review of Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund, which will include some thoughts about its relationship to The Scarlet Pimpernel. And currently she is hosting an amazing giveaway. I'll be hosting one starting Friday too so you have two chances to win :)

If you'd like to give The Scarlet Pimpernel a try, it is available for FREE through Project Gutenberg. We'd love to hear your thoughts if you've read the book.

Why YA Realistic Fiction #3: Relationships

Aragorn with toy

Welcome to post #3 in my September Weekly Discussion Posts focusing on YA Realistic Fiction and why it rocks. Many times I feel like contemporary and historical books are overlooked in favor of the paranormal, fantasy, and dystopia around the YA blogosphere. This is just a little attempt on my part to bring to your attention some of the great things about YA Realistic Fiction. I'm going to have three weeks of posts and then the fourth week will have a giveaway so be sure to stop by!


This week I am thinking about the kinds of relationships featured in books. The main type that also seems to garner the most attention is the romantic and why not? Romance is great and I am drawn to books with a strong romantic element. However I have found myself becoming increasingly picky about my romance (and very anti-love triangle). Thus I hope for a book with strong friendships and ideally some parental involvement. Where do I turn? Realistic fiction.


Now I'm speaking very generally here about stereotypes but I feel like when I am looking for those kinds of non-romantic relationships, they are more likely to be found in realistic fiction. I feel like this might be for two main reasons. First, it is reflecting real-life where we tend to have those kinds of relationships. Everyone has parents although the involvement varies and most people manage to have some friends outside of a romantic relationship.

The other main reason I can think of is just the focus of realistic fiction. A lot of dystopia and fantasy have to introduce new rules of the world in addition to romance and that cuts down on the page-time for other relationships. The one exception I feel would be for mentors to the main character (I'm thinking of Orma in Seraphina and Kanin in The Immortal Rules particularly). When the focus of the story is defeating tyranny or just plain surviving, that cuts down on the time that can be spent developing other kinds of relationships. But realistic fiction already has rules established and usually lower stakes leaving more time for a girl to just relax with her friends (or obsess over schoolwork, activities, college, boys, etc. with friends). Because I remember how important my friends were to me in high school, I always like to mention when I feel like a book does a particularly good job capturing that.


What do you think? Do you think my ideas about the reasons have any truth? What other reasons can you think of?



Thus concludes my discussion posts for this theme. Remember to come back next week to enter a giveaway :) Honestly that's the best part of these discussion posts!

A peek at the week ahead: A lot of disappointment on my end. I wanted x from books and they kept giving me y. Expect 3 and 3.5 star reviews, on the lower end of the ratings (usually I DNF a book that would earn less).

Why YA Realistic Fiction #2: World-Building

Welcome to post #2 in my September Weekly Discussion Posts focusing on YA Realistic Fiction and why it rocks. Many times I feel like contemporary and historical books are overlooked in favor of the paranormal, fantasy, and dystopia around the YA blogosphere. This is just a little attempt on my part to bring to your attention some of the great things about YA Realistic Fiction. I'm going to have three weeks of posts and then the fourth week will have a giveaway so be sure to stop by!

This week's topic is World-building and is perhaps a bit more relevant to contemporary rather historical fiction. I was reminded of this as I started reading Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff this week. This is an adult steampunk fantasy novel that is filled with unfamiliar words and governmental structures; I really struggled in the beginning. To me, this experience is a great reminder of how fast I can slip into a contemporary novel. Most of those I've read are set in high schools or the summer in America-something I am very familiar with. Even those set in Australian or British schools have their familiar elements.

This also applies to all of the little details: what do people eat? What does their clothing and housing look like? What role does the government play? A lot of those answers can be taken for granted in a contemporary novel and it certainly helps me slide into the world and start to connect with the characters, my primary purpose when reading.

These thoughts are not an excuse for realistic fiction writers to skimp on details that enhance our understanding of character because they assume we know already. The right information about character clothing or class selection can prove illuminating. But I think it's a great thing for us readers to not have to wade through pages of description and info-dumps before we can get to the real heart of the story.

Do you agree that the worlds of realistic fiction often pop quickly more than those that are constructed whole-scale from the author's imagination?

Be sure to join me next week for the third post about relationships.

Sidenote:
Look what I treated myself to:
Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt
Confessions of an Angry Girl by Louise Rozett
Two great books that you could win September 23 when I unveil my accompanying giveaway!

Why YA Realistic Fiction #1: Standalones

My cat

Welcome to post #1 in my September Weekly Discussion Posts focusing on YA Realistic Fiction and why it rocks. Many times I feel like contemporary and historical books are overlooked in favor of the paranormal, fantasy, and dystopia around the YA blogosphere. This is just a little attempt on my part to bring to your attention some of the great things about YA Realistic Fiction. I'm going to have three weeks of posts and then the fourth week will have a giveaway so be sure to stop by!

The topic for the first week is YA Standalones. For the part if you pick up a paranormal, dystopia, or fantasy book, you are investing in a story that will be told over three parts-that seems to be the dominant number although I have seen several series that are longer. This is not a bad thing, of course. But sometimes I just want one story in one book, with no cliffhanger driving me crazy while waiting; just one self-contained story. And when I want that, I head to the realistic fiction.

I guess it's just about balance. Sometimes I love a world or the characters so much that I want more time. Sometimes the author actually seems to have a story that needs that much space...and sometimes they don't. Since I would prefer to be left wanting more, standalones work great for me.

Of course, not all realistic novels are standalones; I just feel like you are more likely to find a standalone title in that section. What do you think? Do you agree with my assessment about this aspect of realistic fiction? What are some enjoyable non-realistic fiction YA books that are standalone?

Next week: setting/world-building

Discussion Post: Spoilers in Reviews?

<sorry no picture; didn't have time to look for one that was allowed or to upload one of my own.>

This is the concluding post, for now, about some items I've been thinking about lately. Personally I am very pro-spoilers but I have been thinking about a few things relating to them.

I like spoilers because I like knowing what is going to happen. I live on the West Coast so I can check out what East Coast people say about my favorite dramas before watching them for myself. I can also choose not to; it's all about having options! I especially like having spoilers in book blogger reviews because sometimes they can really shift your reading experience. Say an unexpected couple kiss and it makes you squee or maybe the author killed off your favorite character-isn't that going to greatly affect how you feel about the book? And you need to communicate that to the reader but you should also give them the option to decide how much they want to know.

Of course, you definitely have to warn people. If the review comes before the book is officially published, then it definitely needs to be marked. But when does that run out? I remember people having spoilers galore about Mockingjay within 24 hours and not always marking them as such (I was upset because my book was not delivered the day of release despite Amazon's promise). I also feel like some spoilers are necessary in order to properly discuss that book as well as others. However now it's been two years since the release-do you still mark spoiler? At some point, do you no longer have to warn your readers? I feel like this is more relevant for classics blogs but still applicable here.

Another element related to spoilers is the goodreads and publishers synopses that feature spoilers. For me, Glamorous Illusions did this. I was very interested to find out how an aspiring teacher, the daughter of farmers in Montana, ended up embarking on a grand tour of Europe and goodreads told me right away instead of enjoying the very emotionally powerful opening chapters that laid the groundwork. I usually jump on goodreads to pursue reviews after reading the first chapter or so and was really disappointed in this instance. I've seen other reviewers mention similar problems with the official synopses for other books as well.

So do you love spoilers or do you avoid them? Is there a time-limit on how long something has to be marked as spoiler? And how do we get other sources to edit their info so there's not a spoiler?

Discussion Post: Intertextuality in Reviews

This is Georges Seurat's famous painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" which I chose to include here not because it's related to anything I'm talking about but because after reading Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead, it's been in my head.

Today's post is actually about something I am calling intertextuality although the word is so big and encompasses so many meanings that I am only skimming the surface. For the purposes of this post, I am defining intertextuality as using a secondary text to highlight something about a primary text. I was thinking about this in the context of my reviews and specifically my recent review of Seraphina. I know that I often reference other books and media to highlight my feelings and this review is no exception.

I compared main character Seraphina to Tamora Pierce's Alanna, her mentor Orma to Star Trek's Mr. Spock, and dreamy Kiggs to Richard Armitage's portrayal of John Thornton in North and South. If you are familiar with any of those works, you have a great insight in to *my* views of the characters.

And I think that tends to be the way I approach my reviews, the way I find simplest for conveying how I think of them. I read a lot as well as being very immersed in (American) television, movies, music, and general celebrity gossip. I'm very impressed by those bloggers who write these beautiful paragraphs and incisively critique the book. But that's not my style. For me, almost always a character in a book will read me of something else in culture I'm familiar with and I will rely on that when preparing my review. I don't always, of course, but I sometimes think my reviews are the better for it when I can use those points in explaining how they affected my reading experience.

However this can be isolating to the reader. I don't think these references are too obscure because I think most people have heard of Spock and Alanna is a pretty popular character, especially formative to a lot of us bookish ladies, I know. Meanwhile I sourced Richard Armitage so you could do your own search (if you didn't, I highly suggest that you do because he's gorgeous.) But obviously I'm speaking from my own experiences and it may have served as a turn-off to people who found it confusing.

So what do you think? Do you like when bloggers reference other books/movies/TV/etc. to explain their feelings about a character? Has it ever caused you great confusion? Do you ever incorporate such references into your reviews?

Discussion Post: On Expectations

I got a little scared about picture rights and uses after reading some stuff this week so I decided to feature a picture that has nothing to do with the topic but a. makes me happy and b. is completely legal for me to use; neither the photographer nor the subject will have anything to say to me about it. This is my cat Aragorn who has lately taken to showing us his stomach, which we all take as an invitation to pet him because petting a cat's stomach is one of the best things ever.

On to the discussion topic, the first of three I have planned for the month!

Lately I have been thinking about how my expectations affect my enjoyment of a book and subsequent review. I think I will usually end up rating a book lower if I was expecting something different from what I feel I ended up getting. There are two main experiences I had recently that influenced this blogpost.

First was seeing a review from Jen Ryland about Auracle, a book I had never heard of. Based on the blurb, she "was expecting paranormal suspense" while the book "was more of a dramedy." As she points out, that's not exactly a bad thing but misleading publisher descriptions are one of the most frustrating instances. If I pick up a book looking for light comedy and end up getting something melodramatic that is trying to pluck my heartstrings, I will be upset. I think this is especially important for those of us who are mood readers. I like surprises as much as the next person but if I'm picking up a book whose cover and blurb suggest one genre, I will be upset to discover it is more like another and that is likely to be reflected in my review.

The second instance was in my experience of reading Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore. After loving Graceling and Fire, I thought Bitterblue would be a slam-dunk read. My review is still to come but it was not to my taste. The expectations set by the previous books of Cashore were not met for me and this book probably received a lower rating than it would have had my expectations not been so high, based on my previous experiences with the author.

One last way I've thought about expectations is how other bloggers influence me. Sometimes bloggers like Jen give us a heads-up on how the publisher blurb is a bit misleading. But sometimes blogger recs lead us astray. Have you ever picked up a book after seeing it get rave reviews from some bloggers, only to end up thinking, "Did we read the same book? Why was this praised? She thought this writing was good?!" This seems to happen to me especially when I see bloggers gush over the latest YA paranormal romance with a drop-dead gorgeous dress on the cover only to find the heroine insipid and the love triangle frustrating.

These are all examples where I would probably end up writing a more negative review than if I had moderated my expectations. What about you? Do those misaligned expectations negatively impact your reading experience and review or are you able to separate the merits of the book from what you expected? What other situations with expectations and the reading experience have you encountered? And please note, I was somewhat focusing on the negative because I have had many times where books exceeded my expectations and led to great times.

Up next week: intertextuality in reviews