Meeting #3 – A Great and Terrible Beauty
Posted in Meetings on 11/11/2009 12:49 pm by shallenbeck
Date: November 7th, 2009
Time: 7:30pm
Host: Meg Lyman
Attendees: Malinda, Lina, and Jenn
Snack: Homemade Pumpkin pie, made with fresh pumpkin. Quite tasty!
Our book this month was A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. This is a young adult novel and was a fairly easy read. It is the first in a series of three books. Everyone was able to get through the book in the month without a problem, some of us even got on to the second and third books.
This book is set in England in the late 1890’s. It’s the tale of a girl with the “power to attract the supernatural”.
Overall it seems that most of us found that the book was just OK. The plot was fine, the story was a bit slow and very predictable, and the historical aspects felt forced or haphazard. Perhaps reading this book on the heels of a book actually written in the 1800’s (Dickens) added to the obvious modern feel to the book. It was very easy to forget that this book was set in history, until the occasional mention of a corset or the way a woman was expected to behave. The girls in this book went so far out of the mold for the time, we found ourselves questioning whether it could actually happen.
Jenn and I both read past the first book. I read the second and Jenn read all three. While I felt the story improved in the second book in that I found myself wanting to know what happened next, the writing, the modern feel, and predictability did not. I found myself constantly wondering, would they talk like that then? Would that happen then? Jenn seemed to enjoy the way the series what wrapped up, but I will let her tell you for herself, if she feels inclined.
Ladies of the club, please feel free to add your comments and let everyone know what you thought of the book(s)!
Next Time:
Malinda will be hosting our next meeting, which will be held Friday, December 4th at 7pm. We are reading A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving.
Have a terrific month!!