Wide-Eyed Reader

Now, I didn't finish this one. I only got about 20% through it, which is shockingly not far, for me. So, this review will be a little bit unlike my usual... The plot of this seemed interesting - a daughter of nobility forced by rebel kidnappers to betray her family and everything she's ever known, with the promise of complicated morality and the idea that neither side is right. I was intrigued by that, of course! What I got, though, was a group of petty teenagers sniping at each other while the "moral" rebel leader threatens innocent people and is - surprise! - behaving like a tyrant. I wasn't as happy as I expected to be with the premise at all, as I thought it was not utilized to its full potential. And the characters . God, the only likable ones were Celia and Darrow, and they almost died in the second chapter! Kestra, the noble's daughter, is a spoiled brat who has to get the upper hand in everything. She's selfish, irritating, and makes me want...

I'm not much of a nonfiction reader, really, but I just couldn't resist this one - history, Chicago (my favorite American city), and one of the most interesting murder stories I've ever heard of? Of course I had to read it! CHARACTERS As The Devil in the White City  is a history, and not a novel, this is a bit harder to talk about than in most of my reviews. As everyone discussed in the book was a real person and all of it is drawn from fact more heavily than in historical fiction, I cannot comment on how well-developed the characters were, but on the quality of writing. I felt that I understood the two characters Larson focused on, Daniel Burnham the architect and H. H. Holmes the murderer - as much as I could understand them, given the historical distance. Larson did an excellent job showing these people as rounded, and makes an effort to explore the depths of their minds. Even those who are not the focus of the book get plenty of room to seem like robust portrait...

I get the feeling that I'm in the minority where this novel is concerned. Now, I do not normally read in this genre, and only read this book as it was a gift from my mother's best friend - who is basically my aunt. This may have affected my reading on the book, but that does not diminish the fact that I didn't like it much. CHARACTERS While the main character of Divine Secrets  is Sidda Walker, the character that gets the most focus and development is her mother, Vivi. Marginal characters are Sidda's fiance Connor and Vivi's three best friends, Caro, Teensy, and Necie. And out of them, I liked Connor the best. Let's start with Vivi. I found her (and her friends, to be honest) to be self-centered, spoiled, and without a care for most people in her life. Vivi is one of those women who takes self-care to the extreme and stops believing that anyone but herself and her feelings matter. She and her three friends, who call themselves the Ya-Yas, believe themsel...

Things I learned from this novel: Margaret Beaufort was self-righteous and power-hungry; and the Cousin's War (the War of the Roses) was really long and drawn-out. Like, generations long and drawn-out. Let's talk about the novel, though! CHARACTERS The main character of The Red Queen  is Margaret Beaufort, daughter of John Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset, and an heiress to the Lancaster House of England - at the time of Margaret's birth, the royal house. As a young girl, she is married off to the king's half-brother, Edmund Tudor, who was some twelve or so years older than her. Through him, Margaret conceived her only child, Henry Tudor, who was royal through both parents and had a vast claim to the throne. Cue, the Cousin's War. At the start, Margaret is shown to be someone who thinks she is above others. She expects special treatment from her mother (see: begging to be a nun rather than marry, though she was her father's only child and as such, was exp...