By Tracy Chevalier
Read: January ‘10
Rating: Illuminating
For the Feminist Review
I’m a huge fan of Tracy Chevalier. Like a lot of people, I began with Girl with a Pearl Earring, and have since made my way through all but one of her other books. So of course I leapt at the chance to sample her newest offering.
Like all [...]

By Johanna Lindsey
Read: Feb 2010
Rating: Convoluted
There’s a LOT of fun to poke at this thing. Before I have fun, let me say that it wasn’t awful. It wasn’t really good, either.
BOOK-IN-A-MINUTE, Git-style
(Yes, that means spoiler)
Roseleen: I am a history professor with a penchant for old weapons. Look at this fabulous old sword my brother [...]

By Barbara G. Walker
Not Read: Feb 2010
Rating: *zones out*
I’m trying to be good, really I am. But 50 pages out of 170 isn’t such a bad run…
The book is awkward and boring and it reads like what it is–a work of fiction by a feminist scholar that has been described (by The Northwest Gay and [...]

By Jude Deveraux
Attempted to Read: January 2010
Rating: AUGH
Wot the shit is this?! Today, RB stands for RIDICULOUSLY BAD.
Hey Jude don’t make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her under your skin
Then you’ll begin to make it better
Better, better, better, better, better, Yeah,Yeah,YeahNa Na Na Na Na Na Na
Na Na Na [...]

By Victoria Holt
Read: January 2010
Rating: Not Bad
I don’t remember where it came from, but I wound up with a paperback of this out-of-print book. I can’t see a reason for it to be. It’s not a romance novel–it’s a novel with romance in it. So there.
Caroline Tressidor is the second daughter of a wealthy, upstanding [...]

By Susanna Clarke
Read: December 2009
Rating: Engrossing
For the record, I am including this in the 2009 50Book list, because I read the vast majority of it during December. So there.
Mein gott, this has been sitting on my shelf since FOREVER. And it is one daunting brick of a book, too. Over 1000 pages in the paperback. [...]

By Joanne Harris
Read: December 2009
Rating: Delicious
I saw the movie ages ago, but I don’t remember it very well. A good deal of the book felt familiar, which means the movie did bear some similarity to it. Not that anyone would really care when they could gaze on a GORGEOUS Johnny Depp.
The book is lovely. Intriguing, [...]

By Diane Gaston
Read: November 2009
Rating: Amusing
Not a lot to say about this one. It was definitely amusing.
Totally ludicrous set-up that the book made work:
Morgana Hart has a maid who thinks she’s only fit to work as a common whore. Desperate to keep her from such a life, Morgana promises to help her become a [...]

By Johanna Lindsey
Read: October/November 2009
Rating: Fun!
Do not be fooled by that innocuous cover in the Amazon preview. DO NOT, I SAY. That is a redesign, to appeal to modern readers. Why? Because this would never pass muster today:

I’m not sure it passed muster then, either. My edition is more orangey, but you get the point. [...]

by Helen Fielding
Read: 2003-ish, October 2009
Rating: Even better.
I’ve fallen behind in my reviews, so this will have to be a bit quick.
Edge of Reason is even better than the original Bridget Jones. It’s longer, and more involved. It also has much more of her excellent friends.
And, yes, this is the one where she goes on [...]

By Helen Fielding
Read: October 2009, repeatedly since ~2002
Rating: v.v.v.v.g.
Bridget Jones is a classic of our time. She can’t be anything but. Plenty of people have gone on and on about how this book changed womens’ literature to chick lit (for better or worse). When I first read it, I was sixteen and trapped on a [...]

By Sarah Dunant
Read: October 2009
Rating: Excellent
The Birth of Venus begins in the most intriguing way… It is the tail end of the Renaissance, in Florence, Italy. An elderly nun in a convent dies from a malignant breast tumor. The convent’s tradition is to wash and clothe the body, make it fresh for the soul’s meeting [...]

By Elizabeth Lowell
Read: June 2009
Rating: Cool?
Yeah, so, I’ve talked about how dangerous library book sales are, right? Right. I found me some romances. Proper swooning cover romances. I mean, check this inner cover out. Pink satin sheets, hair spread wantonly across pillows, limbs tangled and toes curling.

Oh yeah, and he’s got a mullet.
You might [...]

By Emily Bronte
Read: March 2009
Rating: Poison
I give up. I quit. I want nothing more to do with this torturous mess. I decided it was time to try Wuthering Heights because my TiVo had picked up a documentary on the Bronte sisters, which was of course full of people who think they’re the most brilliant [...]

By Sue Margolis
Read: Feb/Mar 2009
Rating: Mmm
Something like 10 years ago, my mom found Neurotica in B&N. She loved it. My dad loved it. I loved it. Our friends love it. Our copy has been passed around so much, it’s a wonder it’s still in one piece. So I had high hopes for another Margolis book.
Sadly, [...]

By DH Lawrence
Read: Feb/Mar 2009
Rating:a Romp
I wish I’d read this sooner. It’s so wonderful to read a book by a man, written decades ago, that basically asks the question, “Why shouldn’t this woman be happy?” Feminist, ho!
Connie is a product of the brief wave of feminism in the second quarter-ish of the 20th century. She [...]

By Ariana Franklin
Read: Feb 2009
Rating: AWESOME.
I go down on bended knee to my friend V for recommending this. The cover and its text make this sound like a pretty dark murder mystery that happens to be set in medieval Europe. That was pretty cool, but I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it so much. It’s FUNNY. [...]

By George W. M. Reynolds
Attempted Read: Feb 2009
Rating: Goddamn.
Just… goddamn.  I saw this at Strand Books and spent MONTHS hemming and hawing over whether or not I should put my money toward it.
Pro: It’s a book from the 1800s about a werewolf in the 1500s. HOT DAMN it’s historical fiction^2 with a shot of supernatural!
Con: [...]

by Judith Lindbergh
Read: December 2008
Rating: Woah
I mean, seriously, woah. I’m still trying to sort out what I really think about this. I mean, it was good. It was really, really good. I can totally appreciate this as a writer, and an experienced reader. I’m not sure if that means its a good read, though… or [...]

by Noel Streatfield
Read: Eons ago, December 2008
Rating: Sweet
You may know of Ballet Shoes because the BBC has turned it into a movie with Emma Watson (aka Hermione). Like Harry Potter, that movie is based on a book. Unlike Potter, Ballet Shoes is OLD. It dates back to the 1930s. My copy is from 1958.
This is [...]

By Diane Johnson
Read: November 2008
Rating: Mmph.
Right, so. I saw the movie ages back and don’t remember much about it except that I liked it more than my mother did, and she thought it was very disappointing.
The book is… strange. I wish we’d read it in one of my writing classes because it pulls all kinds [...]

By Donna Jo Napoli
Read: 1998, October 2008
Rating: Provocative
I still remember seeing Sirena on display at our school library, when it first came out. I was perhaps in 6th grade. It was on a special shelf, for the library’s special reader program–those readers got first pick of the new titles and were supposed to review them. [...]

By Tracy Chevalier
Read: October 2998
Rating: Victorian
Can I rate something as being Victorian? It sums up quite a bit. Really, it’s on the cusp, beginning with the death of Queen Victoria. More Edwardian–plenty of cultural change going on.
It’s hard not to love this one. Two little girls who both decided that they would be best friends. [...]

By Tracy Chevalier
Read: October 2008
Rating: Enticing
I hadn’t a clue what this one was about before I opened it. It’s tangentially inspired by the life and works of William Blake, a neighbor to the children around whom the story revolves. It’s a tale of country people moving to the big city, about plain folk being [...]

By Tracy Chevalier
Read: October 2008
Rating: Mwah!
I really like Tracy Chevalier. Like so many people, I began with Girl With a Pearl Earring, and loved it. I think I love this even more, though.
Based off the tapestries by the same name, the book follows the people engaged in its making in the 14/1500s. We begin with [...]

By Philip Pullman
Read: August 2008
Rating: Disappointing
Gentle readers, it is a sad day for my bookshelf. I am usually very good about finishing the books I pick up, I hate stopping partway, unless they’re really trash. Even when something becomes mediocre, I see it through, if only to see how bad it gets. I got 2/3 [...]

By Naomi Novik
Read: July 2008
Rating: Intense
I got an email alert announcing the release of this book, and was able to attend Naomi Novik’s very first book signing EVARR. She was excited, we were excited, and the space at the Greenwich Village B&N was standing room only. How cool was that?!
She read an as-yet-unpublished short story [...]