Demelza

For a few days after I finished this book, I was surprised that I wasn't still reading it. Part of my brain was still living in Cornwall in the 1790s. Which I suppose speaks to how engrossing the book actually was and my desire to find out what happens next to Ross, Demelza, Verity, Elizabeth and all the rest. This isn't my usual fare, but it's definitely growing on me.

I appreciated Graham's prose in this book more than the first one, which I think speaks more to my frame of mind than the writing itself. In the last few weeks, I've been feeling my brain turn back on and I'm starting to appreciate more complicated writing again instead of just gorging on lighter, fluffy stuff. This book requires a bit more attention than I was initially expecting, but it rewards it. That said, I still struggled with the crowd scenes - Graham tends to jump around a room and require his reader to follow three or four distinct conversations at once. I'm also having a hard time keeping up with the enormous cast.

But those complaints are minor. As I get farther from this book, I find myself liking it more and more. The good bits are sticking in my mind. And a lot of that is Demelza, who has evolved into an incredibly fun character. I'm still a bit daunted by the length of this series (says the woman who read The Wheel of Time in a year), but I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Crown of Swords

Image
The seventh book of the  Wheel of Time  series is where many people agree that the series takes a dive in quality. Although I think it's less that anything changes significantly and more that people get tired of how stagnant the books are becoming. Nearly nothing happens in this book. Jordan still has serious issues writing female characters and romantic relationships. The world is continuing to be expanded on, and the rules of the magic system are slowly (so slowly) becoming more clear. But this is also a step down in terms of length. We go from a few 1000 page books in a row to one that's only 850 pages (and the next is less than 700!). Combine that with my brilliant idea to read  A Tale of Two Cities  right before this book, and I positively flew through it. I think you have to reach a sort of zen state to get through this series. There are a lot of side plots, a lot of world building, a lot of descriptions of clothing. Rather than just hating certain characters, you hav
Read more

The People We Keep

This was a really sweet coming of age tale about finding your way and finding your family. Aprils' mother walked out when she was little and her father wasn't much more present. By the time she's sixteen, April is basically on her own, stuck in a small town where everyone looks down on her and even her father mostly pretends that she doesn't exist. And then she realizes that she can leave, too. So April heads out for life on the road, working odd jobs, writing and singing songs, making friends and fleeing before anyone can get too close. And through it all her music sustains her. My favorite part of this book, hands-down, was the soundtrack. April's love of music, and the way the author uses it to set the scene and drill right into her emotional state was fantastic. I kept having to put the book down so I could bring up songs on youtube and listen to them while I read certain passages. This was just an overall enjoyable book. I had a lot of sympathy for April being
Read more

Parable of the Sower: The Graphic Novel

This is one of my favorite books, so I clearly had to read the graphic novel version. It's a good story to revisit every now and then, and this edition makes that a lot easier. Since so much of the information is conveyed through images, reading it is a lot quicker. Of course, this being an adaptation, a lot of things got left out. I know the story well enough to have recognized all the omissions. The story still works well, but I'll always think the original has more depth.   Overall, it's a good adaptation of a really important novel. And if the new format helps it reach new audiences, that can only be a good thing.
Read more