It's not *quite* Harry Potter's older, darker, sexier, Victorian cousin....but it's somewhere in the family tree.

Soooo, what you're saying is I really should get around to reading it?

Libba Bray's A Great and Terribly Beauty

Ooooh ooooh! I know the author, and she's one of the smartest, funniest, snarkiest people ever. I loved A Great and Terrible Beauty (although I am, of course, biased).

Just started Rebel Angels, the sequel, and am loving it so far, too.

It's not *quite* Harry Potter's older, darker, sexier, Victorian cousin....but it's somewhere in the family tree.

Soooo, what you're saying is I really should get around to reading it?

Yes, indeed. The beginning is a little *off,* in terms of it being historical fiction, b/c the protagonist's voice is a little too modern, but then the book really hits its stride and slips into fine Victorian voice.

I'm about halfway finished, and I just requested the sequel from the library, b/c I know I'll have it finished in the next day or so.

if you think of "transitions" as "changes" it makes a bit more sense.

Ah. Like movement? Okay, yeah, that does make sense. Thanks, Strega.

Libba Bray's A Great and Terribly Beauty

Is Yeats the most referenced poet ever? Or do I just know more Yeats than other poets?

Is Yeats the most referenced poet ever?

Shakespeare, surely. Although I have seen about five books in the last ten years that steal from Morrissey for their titles.

Hey all. I just finished Mary Doria Russell's latest, entitled A Thread of Grace. I probably could have guessed that it would be subpar from that subpar title, but about thirty pages in I realized I was basically reading War and Remembrance in Liguria. So I read it all the way through, but got about as much value out of it as I did out of War and Remembrance -- cast of thousands, treacly dedications, killings-off according to the need for bloodbath, editorial ponderings of how evil Hitler was, symbolic blah-blah.

(I mean, duh, in a novel published sixty years later, do we really need to state that Hitler sucked? Can you tell I never watch those OMG what happened to Hitler's fingernail clippings?!? shows on the History Channel?)

And unlike Herman Wouk (or Leon Uris, who is better), Russell can't or won't write a proper action scene, which is rather the disadvantage, in a novel about World War II. Could potentially have been a better novel, if it had been more focussed; but mostly, it was just lame.

Wow, that's so totally not what I got out of that novel, Nutty.

Do tell. What did you think of it? (And did you hate War and Remembrance as much as I did?)

I posted a brief review here. [link]

And this is what I ended with: This isn't a novel about the glory of war; neither is it a heartwarming story about how the villagers all pulled together to save the Jews. It's about redemption, and broken people trying to make the right choices. About choosing the right path when there is no right path.

Because I didn't feel the novel was about how bad Hitler was: it was about what people do. What people actually did. Yes, terrible things happened, and yes, the action scenes weren't. But that wasn't the point of it. The point really was about the small grace moments when people reached out to one another, risking their lives and their families, to do the right thing. And about the price they paid for that, and about how even well-meaning people can do terrible things -- like the Allies, like Schramm, like Renzo, like the Jesuits in The Sparrow.

I found it moving and heartbreaking and hopeful while also being ultimately very very sad. I don't know that I'd reread it anytime soon, and Russell's narrative choices aren't the ones that I would make, but I don't think that makes it a bad book.

I've never read any Herman Wouk, and the last Leon Uris I read was many years ago; Trinity, I think. The last WWII novel I recall reading is Edith Pargeter's trilogy, written while the war was going on, which makes it particularly interesting. I should probably go back and find that; she's really really good.