Shades of Milk and Honey: Oh My!

While I have never been a huge fan of Valentine’s Day, I figured we would celebrate it in literature with a review of Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal. Kowal’s debut novel is set in England and is reminiscent of Jane Austen’s characters. In fact Kowal openly acknowledges this book is a homage to her love of all things Austen. One could really say this is Pride and Prejudice with a little magic, although not in a terrible way.

Over the past several years various authors have rewritten or borrowed the characters of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, adjusted the storyline or written a sequel and made their money off Austen’s characters. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Mrs. Darcy’s Dilemma being the two major ones that spring to mind. I personally find the hijack of another author’s characters, even a long dead author, to be theft. That is simply my opinion, so I was a little worried when I read a few of the comments about this book on Goodreads. However, while Shades of Milk and Honey has elements of Pride and Prejudice, this is a story with original characters and a hint of magic thrown in.

This book revolves around the “on-the-shelf” spinster Jane Ellsworth. The book jacket lists Jane as a “woman ahead of her time,” which I found to be an overstatement. She spends the majority of the book attempting to convince herself, she is okay with her lot in life. She is advanced in the womanly art of glamour (think magical interior decorating) but her skill does not overshadow her unfortunate lack of beauty. Towards the end of the book she does throw decorum to the wind and the results are quite charming.

The glamour used in this book is interesting. It provides a subtle shift from the typical Regency era novels without being intrusive. When I first started looking at this novel I wondered how Kowal would force magic into such a tightly wrapped ruled based society. She does it admirably. This system of magic seems to flow freely within her narrative and provides for some fun and interesting episodes. 

This book is a very quick read and it is enjoyable but I found the characters to be underdeveloped. Jane seems to go from much attached to the neighbor to in love with the mysterious Mr. Vincent in the course of a chapter. While I think you are supposed find Jane’s sister, Melody, to be young and flighty, to me she showed a real cruel streak, making Jane’s devotion to her difficult to understand.
One of the things I loved about Pride and Prejudice is the development of Jane and Elizabeth’s parents and how those roles play off the main story. I believe Kowal attempted to accomplish this feat but it seems loosely done.

I learned about this book series through a Stuff You Missed in History Podcast discussing the Year Without a Summer.  I love this podcast and highly recommend checking it out on iTunes.
When reading Shades, it reads as a standalone story with a nice bow-tied ending. I am interested in reading the next book but it would not be strictly necessary. Overall I give this story a three and half stars out of five.

I have found no record of Shades of Milk and Honey being challenged or banned.  However magic does have the ability to make some of the masses nervous.  It would not surprise me if a few individuals have leveled local challenges on this series without it becoming a news story.  After all librarians are often the first line of defense in censorship.   According to the Christian County Library Austen’s Pride and Prejudice does not have a history of being challenged or banned. 

Next week I will discuss the intriguing story behind the rapture (or not rapture) in Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers.

Confession Time! I read romance novels. There I said it. Oh I feel like a huge weight is off my shoulders; no need to hide my dark habit in the corner.

Okay sarcasm aside, I do not understand the bashing accompanying this genre. Normally when I explain I enjoy the occasionally historical romance (my personal favorites are Regency Romances) I get weird looks and the phrase “really?” I used to feel the need to justify my enjoyment of what one of my grandmothers called “smut.” (The other grandma reads them with gusto!) I said things such as “well they are easy reads” or “sometimes my brain just needs a rest.” Both of these statements are true but the underlying reason that I read one to two (to four) romances a month is because I LIKE THEM!
There I said it. I have found that most people who pass judgment on this genre (and usually any genre) are individuals who have never read one. Sometimes they have read one they hated and judge all romance books by this one unfortunate experience. I have also heard the “these set up unrealistic expectations of love.” I would argue that most fiction can set unrealistic expectations and some of the self-help fall into this category as well. After all it has taken me years to accept I will not be receiving my letter from Hogwarts and must remain a muggle but I am okay. (Not that I would not pick out a wand tomorrow if I learned the owl delivering my letter simply got lost for years!)
The two books I read this month are not great literature. One was a super fun read; the other not so much. Here is a little background on both.

Say Yes to the Marquess is Tessa Dare’s second book in her Castles Ever After series. This is a historical romance featuring Miss Cleo Whitmore who has been patiently waiting for her fiancé to return and marry her for eight years. She finally decides she is through after inheriting a castle. Unfortunately her fiancé’s brother, Rafe, does not want her to break the engagement and during several far-fetched antics they fall in love. My favorite part of this book is that Cleo has decided to open a brewery on her castle. In the end everyone is happy and she does begin to grow hops. All in all a pleasant way to spend a few hours.

While it is the second in the series these are standalone books. There are no characters from the first novel in this one. Feel free to read Dare’s series in whatever order you please.
Hannah Howel’s If He is Daring is the sixth book she has written involving the Wherlocke family. The Wherlocke’s all possess different traits/gifts which make them pseudo outcasts in Victorian society. In this book Lady Catrin enlists Sir Orion Wherlocke’s aid in rescuing her son after he is kidnapped by an evil uncle. I did not enjoy this story very much. There are parts of it which are very dark. There is childhood abuse and a drugged rape scene which turned my stomach and makes me unwilling to recommend this novel in the “fun smut” category. Overall the story ends happy (it is a romance) but it is not one that I will pick up again in the future.

Neither of these books has any listed challenges against them. To be very honest they are not popular enough to warrant a challenge.

Next week I will be reviewing a book a first learned about on the podcast “Stuff you Missed in History Class” Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal. Until then have a wonderful week and enjoy a good book!

A Dance with Dragons

Disclaimer: I do not watch HBO’s Game of Thrones show.  This review is about the book, A Dance with Dragons and contains spoilers.

I do not know whether I hate George R.R. Martin or love the man and wish to worship the fantasy ground upon which he walks.  I finished this book last week and I have hesitated to write this review until I felt less wobbly on this issue.  Yet I feel I am still sitting in the middle of this teeter-totter so I have elected to put my thoughts – scattered brained though they are, into words. I rotated between wanting to read 300 pages on a crazy snow day (and did) and reading a single chapter then putting it down and refusing to pick it back up for a day or so.  I wish I had a good way to say this was a four star or two star book but the truth is parts of it for me were easily five stars and others parts were solidly one star.  So I decided to label this a 3 Dragon book.

 

This is easily one of the most loved fantasy series of the 21st century (thanks, in my opinion, largely to HBO).  As a reader I see the appeal.  Martin is a fantastic storyteller.  His characters come alive in ways most other authors simply dream of.  There are whole blogs and wikis discussing potential plot twists and what is going on with John Snow.  You can read something in his books and suddenly a plot point you thought odd two books ago makes sense.  This type of planning is amazing (although Martin’s publishing timeline is often lamented).

I love how he draws out the story Tyrion Lannister.  This character is alive to the reader, from constantly itching his missing nose to rescuing another dwarf and the man who took him captive from slavery.  Tyrion’s antics make A Dance with Dragons worth reading.  I often found myself finishing a Tyrion chapter and glancing ahead to see how many other characters’ stories I had to deal with before getting to another Tyrion section.

 

I also loved when Cersi finally gets her punishment at the end of the book.  I hate this character but that is another reason Martin’s work is so good.  This is a fictional woman with very few redeeming qualities but his ability to make me hate her and relish every step of her naked walk to the Red Keep is fantastic.  When she falls at the end and runs the last few leagues I felt as though I were part of the mob cheering for whore queen’s misery.

 

Most of this books follows the story happening in the Free cities and at the wall during the same time as the events happening in Westeros during A Feast for Crows.  So we finally learn what John Snow, Melisandre, Bran and Daenerys have been accomplishing.  There are times when this gets confusing because our characters are unaware throughout large parts of the book what has happened in A Feast for Crows.  Other times the reader gets a surprise reunion with a previously thought dead character.  Oh Davos, how I didn’t expect to miss you and am so glad your head isn’t rotting up on a pike!

 

What I love about Martin’s books is his characters and this is the biggest issue I had with A Dance with Dragons.  A large part of it focused on Daeneys, a character I have loved watching grow from a scared girl sold to a man for her brother’s crown to a warrior princess.  Until she withers and dies on the vine in this book (metaphorically). This is a woman who marched into a funeral pyre and out with three dragons.  She pillaged cities and unleashed the Unsullied on the men and women who trained them.  She is the mother of Dragons and yet in this book she is back to the young lost girl.  She felt one dimensional to me and completely unbelievable.  I spent most of the novel hating her.  She appears to maybe have an awakening while walking back to Meereen at the end of the book but we will have to wait for Winds of Winter to know for sure.

 

Another sore point for me, although I admit that is petty, is the Jaime/Brienne story line. Brienne is my favorite character. I simply cannot get enough of the “pretty” Maid of Tarth and screamed when zombie Catelyn Stark murdered her in A Feast for Crows! She gets a paragraph in this book and not even a long one! Just enough so you know she is not dead (zombie?) but nothing more. She and Jaime pretty much disappear.

I suspect my love/hate relationship with Martin will continue. I will read Winds of Winter, likely as soon as it hits the shelves. I need to know, like the rest of the world, how John Snow is! If you love fantasy novels I highly suggest Martin’s books but with one HUGE disclaimer – read them in order. You cannot pick this series up from the middle point.

As to the banned status of this book the answer is unclear. Based on what is in the books (sex, violence, foreign/made up gods/goddesses) it is a likely candidate to have been challenged. I did find one article from 2013 (link here) suggesting Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice Series was partially banned by the Connecticut State Prison System but A Dance with Dragons had not yet been requested by an inmate so its status was unknown. If you know of any local challenges to this book I would love to hear about it.

I read across genres and so next week will be an introduction to my “Trashy Romance” review. I plan once a month to review some fun “smut.” Up first will be Say Yes to the Marquess by Tessa Dare and If He is Daring by Hannah Howell. Have a great week and read a book!

A Few Words on Censorship or How I Named my Blog

Censorship: The system or practice of limiting or denying access to books, movies, letters, ect…

During the history of our nation many books have been challenged or banned by local, state and the federal government.  I choose the title of this blog based on my love of a few of these banned books.  While the US federal government has not banned a book since 1966, many books are still regularly challenged at school and public libraries.  A few of my favorites banned books include: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – a book about the dangers of censorship!  Yet while I read and enjoyed these books in school, it was not until I read the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling my interest in banned and challenged books began to grow.  Rowling has the unfortunate distinction of being the most challenged author of the first decade of the 21st century.

I love the Harry Potter series and found the charges leveled against it ridiculous so I began investigating other books.  I found many of today’s current best sellers have been challenged or banned.  Although the US no longer bans books at the federal level, local challenges occur with surprising frequency.  In the US challenges are very easy to level against a book, though most public libraries refuse to pull books from their shelves today.  An individual or group decides a book is “bad” and attempts to have it pulled from the library’s shelf.  The librarian will then decide whether to agree with the group and pull the book or to ignore the request.  As you can imagine this process can be highly subjective.  In the case of school libraries it is most often administrators who make decisions about the availability of books.

The sad truth is humans have censored reading material since before Guttenberg’s printing press (1436) helped bring Europe out of the dark ages. While often individuals state censoring books is for the good of our society, I would argue it is usually fear that drives people to attempt to ban books.  As a parent and avid reader I understand this fear.  Books are dangerous!  Books can make a person question the ideas they hold dear; they open a the world to critical thinking and awaken the imagination.  In short, books have the power to make the impossible possible.

Books are our great equalizer.  The ability to read and think for yourself is at your fingertips at the local library.  Most libraries do interlibrary loans so you have even more options than you realize.  If you enjoy an e-reader, most libraries offer e-books for online checkout.  The world is open to you through the written word but only if you open the cover.  Fear of something gives it power which is why censorship is so dangerous.  Allow yourself the opportunity to try a book you think you will hate.  You may enjoy it and, if you hate it, then you know you hate it instead of just suspecting it.  No one is going to love everything put into print but we should all appreciate the ability to read whatever we want.  Our forefathers and millions of individuals around the world did not and do not have the access to the materials we have.  Don’t waste it.

Most weeks this blog will be a review of the materials I have read in the last week or two.  Up first George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons.  I will do my best to illuminate when a book I am reviewing has been challenged or banned but it is not always easy to find.  If you want more information on Banned Books Week or the ALA’s fight against censorship I highly recommend their website: http://www.ala.org.  Now I will leave you with the Top Challenged Books of 2013 (2014 is not yet out).  Are any of your favorites listed?

1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
9.  Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
10. Bone (series), by Jeff Smith