Evelina: Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Frances Burney

 

Title:  Evelina: Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World

Author:  Frances Burney

Narrated by:  Orson Scott Card, Emily Rankin, Stefan Rudnicki, Gabrielle de Cuir

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Length: Approximately 18 hours and 16 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible

What is the oldest published book you’ve read (not counting the Bible)? Pamela by Samuel Richardson (published in 1740) is one of the oldest I’ve read, besides the Iliad and the Odyssey.  But do the Iliad and Odyssey count?

Evelina Anville has left her secluded county home to visit London for the first time. While there, she discovers there is a lot she doesn’t know about proper behavior at dances and in society.  She also finds she has feelings for the handsome and very nice Lord Orville, but she is also pursued by others she finds despicable such as Sir Clement Willoughby.

Evelina has a tragic past as her mother married Sir John Belmont who then cast her pregnant mother off when they returned to England.  She has been raised by Reverand Aurthur Villars per her mother’s request.  Will Evelina ever get her birthright and be recognized by her father?  Will she find love?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This novel was the JASNA Northwoods read for January.  The book club enjoyed it, and it prompted a good discussion.

·       This novel was published in 1778 and was a best seller.

·       It is an epistolatory novel, or a novel written as letters.

·       It is a true comedy of manners novel.  It was interesting how Evelina tried to navigate the social rules in London.  I was confused on why no one taught her these rules and left her on her own to figure it out.

·       I think we all feel like Evelina at times, trying to figure out how to not dance with the creepy guy.

·       This novel had romance, comedy, and some melodrama.  It was a “sentimental” novel at times, but it really shone more in the everyday exchanges.

·       Evelina meets her Grandma (mother’s mother), Madame Duvall, who was over the top with her behavior.

·       The characters in this novel were real-world three-dimensional characters with real problems, especially Evelina.  This is in stark contrast to other 18^th century authors such as Samuel Richardson and his novel Pamela.  Pamela is more discussed and exalted in our modern age, but I felt it was an inferior book with cardboard characters and slapstick situations.

·       Evelina by Frances Burney was one of Jane Austen’s favorite novels and our book club first read about it in Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney.  We are hoping to read more of the books mentioned in Romney’s intriguing nonfiction investigation the books that Austen read.

·       I felt like I could see inspirations for Austen in this novel including a villain named Willoughby, eccentric relations, a young girl going to the big city for the first time, etc.

·       I enjoyed this book and would like to read more by the author.

·       The audiobook was great with a different narrator matching the author of the letters, typically letters between Evelina and Rv. Villars.  I did get confused about the different characters at times and had to stop and look them up.

·       There was a great note at the end of Orson Scott Card read by the author himself.  He described his love and admiration for Jane Austen and how that led him to Fanny Burney and Evelina as Burney was Austen’s favorite author.  He said she wrote the best epistolary novel he had ever read.  One that read like real letters with an authentic voice.  He said it is too bad Burney isn’t read on her own merits as she is an excellent author who deserves to be remembered.

Overall, Evelina by Frances Burney is a classic that deserves to be remembered.  If you enjoy Jane Austen’s novel, I highly recommend reading Evelina by Frances Burney.

 

Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern

Rosie and Alex are best friends growing up in Dublin.  They are separated when Alex’s Dad accepts a job in Boston.  After Rosie finds herself a pregnant teenager, they find themselves on very different paths as adults, never able to reconnect.  How will Rosie and Alex’s love story end?

Love, Rosie is an epistolary novel that is composed of letters, texts, chat rooms, and emails to create the story.  I thought it was a good way to put the story together and it kept me entertained.  There were a couple of times that I wasn’t sure who the author of an email was as there was no signature, but I could usually figure it out.

I liked the characters in the novel, especially the main duo and Rosie’s best friend Ruby. Rosie and Ruby had fun adventures together and I loved that Ruby was able to speak frankly to Rosie.  Rosie’s daughter Katie and her best friend Toby parallel Rosie and Alex’s story.

This novel just went on too long for me.  I really slowed down reading it at the end as I just couldn’t get over the fact that Alex got married AGAIN for the second time to someone other than Rosie.  They had too many misunderstandings and near misses to be believable to me.  I think if this novel would have been edited down 100 pages or so, it would have been much better.

Alex misspells know as no throughout the novel.  This was funny when he was a kid, but grew to really annoy me over the course of the novel as Alex became a doctor.  Rosie’s daughter Katie did this as well.  Do any funny quirks of a book start to annoy you after awhile?

Love, Rosie was the April Kewaunee Library Book Club pick.  I sadly realized today looking at the calendar that I will probably not be able to attend the book club due to my daughter’s field trip.  It would be interesting to see what direction the discussion on this book would take.

Overall, Love, Rosie is an entertaining epistolary romance, but the story went on for at least one hundred pages too long.

Book Source:  Kewaunee Public Library

Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

At the start of WWI, there was a general feeling in Great Britain that it was a lark that would soon be over.  As men headed overseas to France and started battling in the trenches, the feelings soon changed to hopelessness.  Will they ever be able to return home?  Will they ever be able to have a Last Christmas in Paris?

Thomas Harding is spending one last Christmas in Paris in 1968.  With him is a collection of letters from World War I between Evie Elliot, her brother Will, Will’s best friend Thomas Harding, and other friends and family.  As Thomas reads through the letters, he revisits the past, the heartache and loss of the war, and also the great love.

I love, love, loved Last Christmas in Paris.  I think epistolary novels are fun to read, it’s like discovering the story of your Grandparents told through their letters.  I loved the characters, especially Evie.  She lives a privileged youth growing up with Will and Thomas near London.  It all seems a lark when they first go off to war, but as the war progresses, Ellie longs to both become more involved and scared that she may never see Will and Thomas again. 

When going off to war, Thomas feels like it will be over soon, but also doesn’t want to settle into the family business of running a newspaper.  Only when he is overseas does he realize the importance of the paper and his father, and also the importance of his friend Will’s little sister.

I also appreciated that the novel faced a serious problem, PTSD or shell shock as they called it then, squarely on and talked about it as a major part of the story.  

Favorite Quotes:

“Life is forever changed without her without the sense of her somewhere near.  Empty hours wander by as I listen for the soft tread of her football on the stair and wait for her laugher to cheer these lifeless rooms.  When I close my eyes I can conjure her; the scent of her perfume, the feather-touch of her fingertips against my cheek, those intense blue eyes looking back at me.  But it is all illusion.  Smoke and mirrors that conceal the truth of her absence.”

“A new year lies ahead.  Though I am losing hope every day that I will ever return to England in one piece – or at all – at least time marches forward, paying no heed to the follies of men.”

Overall, The Last Christmas in Paris is a wonderful novel of love, life, and war.  I highly recommend it!

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow. Thank-you!

The Boy is Back by Meg Cabot (TLC Book Tours)

When life is stressful, it’s nice to have a light hearted book to curl up with as the cool fall weather takes hold.    The Boy is Back is the story of golf legend Reed Stewart and the high school sweetheart he’d left behind, Becky Flowers.  After a mishap Prom night senior year, Reed left town never to return for ten years.  Becky tries to contact him through various means, but she never hears from him again.  After her father’s death, she takes over the family moving business.

Reed comes back to town after his parents are arrested for not paying their bill at a local eatery.  Or rather paying their bill with a stamp that they believe is worth $400, but is only worth $2.  Reed and his two siblings find out things are much worse.  Although their parents had a lot of money, it is gone, and have become hoarders with their home in disrepair.  How will Reed help his parents and will he be able to patch up his relationship with them and his siblings? Ten years later, is it too late for him to have a chance with Becky again? Does Becky want a chance with him with her business and boyfriend?

I really enjoyed The Boy is Back.  Cabot’s novels are also enjoyable with fun characters and storylines.  I really like how this book was set up as an epistolary novel – although not the letters of an old fashioned epistolary novel, but a modern one where we get the story through a variety of means including texts, journals, e-bay postings, interview transcriptions, etc.  It also included pictures of items for sale (Reed’s mother is always selling cat figurines) and of their hoarding basement (looked a little too much like my basement for comfort).    I had read and loved The Boy Next Door (almost ten years ago) that had the same concept, but was told more through emails at that time.  I enjoyed an update to the epistolary novel.

I also LOVED that part of the romance between Reed and Becky is that they talk to each other with Jane Austen quotes. I love this meet cute with Jane Austen.

“I thought I would die of disdain until Reed looked at the book I was sneak-reading (because Government was so boring) and said, ‘There are so few people whom I really love and still fewer of whom I think well.’

I stared at him in shock.  ‘You’ve read Pride and Prejudice?’

‘Yes, Flowers.’ He smirked.  ‘I can read, you know.’

It was as if he’d peered into my brain, No my soul.”

I also loved when Reed is trying to woe Becky back after a ten year absence, he harkens back to my favorite Austen novel, Persuasion, which also involves an aborted romance and eight year separation by writing this in an email.

“And despite what you may think, I have pictured us meeting again.  This is embarrassing to admit, but for years I’ve had this fantasy that when I came back to Bloomville, it would be as a rich man, like Captain Frederick Wentworth in

Persuasion by Jane Austen.  Do you remember him?”

The Persuasion theme continues in a text to Becky toward the end of the novel.

“Fine, we can do that.  As soon as you confess that you wrote, ‘You pierce my soul, I offer myself to you again with a heart even more you own than when you almost broke it, ten years ago’ beneath my senior photo.”

Overall, The Boy is Back is a fun story with a great romance, and a wonderful love letter to Persuasion for any Jane Austen fans.

Book Source:  Review Copy for being a part of the TLC Book Tour.  Check out this link for a complete tour schedule.

About The Boy is Back

• Hardcover: 368 pages • Publisher: William Morrow (October 18, 2016) In this brand-new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot, a scandal brings a young man back home to the small town, crazy family, and first love he left behind. Reed Stewart thought he’d left all his small town troubles—including a broken heart—behind when he ditched tiny Bloomville, Indiana, ten years ago to become rich and famous on the professional golf circuit.  Then one tiny post on the Internet causes all of those troubles to return . . . with a vengeance. Becky Flowers has worked hard to build her successful senior relocation business, but she’s worked even harder to forget Reed Stewart ever existed. She has absolutely no intention of seeing him when he returns—until his family hires her to save his parents. Now Reed and Becky can’t avoid one another—or the memories of that one fateful night.  And soon everything they thought they knew about themselves (and each other) has been turned upside down, and they—and the entire town of Bloomville—might never be the same, all because The Boy Is Back.

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Photo by Ali Smith

About Meg Cabot

Meg Cabot was born in Bloomington, Indiana. In addition to her award-winning adult contemporary fiction, she is the author of bestselling young adult fiction, including The Princess Diaries and the Mediator series. More than twenty-five million copies of her novels for children and adults have sold worldwide. Meg lives in Key West, Florida, with her husband. Find out more about Meg at her website, follow her blog, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.