![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Books read in May
Jun. 2nd, 2012 09:48 amA Certain Justice - P D James
The Killing - series 1 and 2: the best of the blog - The Guardian
Death in Holy Orders - P D James
The Murder Room - P D James
A Brief History of Montmaray - Michelle Cooper
The FitzOsbornes in Exile - Michelle Cooper
The FitzOsbornes at War - Michelle Cooper
Among Others - Jo Walton
Fields of Gold - Rachel Swirsky
Messy - Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
Feed - M T Anderson
Avatar: the Last Airbender - The Promise (part 2) - Gene Luen Yang
Pretty much a mixed bag, but you've already heard my feelings about Among Others!
Definitely the highlight of the month was the Montmaray trilogy by Michelle Cooper. Like Among Others, it's historical fiction written as the diary of a teenage girl. Unlike Among Others, it's actually convincing, which is odd when you consider that the Montmaray trilogy is basically an Enid Blyton adventure with more social realism and gay people. Montmaray is a tiny fictional island kingdom roughly between England and Spain, and as the story opens it has less than ten inhabitants: the royal family and their four servants. Then there are Nazis! And everyone evacuates, and the self-sufficient, rather rough and tumble royals have to assimilate into upper-class English society! Even though the eldest princess is a socialist bluestocking who gets into fights with Oswald Mosley, and the crown prince is gay, and the middle princess is a sweet, clever girl who learned all the right lessons from Machiavelli, and the youngest is a semi-literate tomboy!
I kept reading along, going, "THIS SHOULD BE TERRIBLE! WHY IS IT SO GOOD?" (and it's true that the superficial terribleness of it all kept me from reading it for a couple of years), but I think it works because the main characters are so down to earth and funny, and also, in a world where the Mitford family exists, a ragtag group of minor royals stumbling through the Season and getting into fights with the Windsors seems fairly plausible. I didn't think the mood could be sustained through WW2, and it's true that I kept having to put The FitzOsbornes At War down while I had a little cry, but the story and the ending were very satisfying.
(I should also mention that Cooper is an Australian author, and now I totally have to read her other YA novel, The Rage of Sheep, but also the Montmaray books are available from the Kindle store now, and are being released in hardcopy in the American market with very pretty Cecil Beaton-style covers.)
Other than that, I really enjoyed Messy, which is the follow-up to last year's Spoiled, and has slightly less nutritional value than the chocolate-with-pop-rocks-and-jelly-beans on my desk, but it's terribly fun to read and makes me think of a contemporary Daria.
And, just to go for the minority opinion, I really enjoyed part 2 of "The Promise". ( Spoilers! )
The Killing - series 1 and 2: the best of the blog - The Guardian
Death in Holy Orders - P D James
The Murder Room - P D James
A Brief History of Montmaray - Michelle Cooper
The FitzOsbornes in Exile - Michelle Cooper
The FitzOsbornes at War - Michelle Cooper
Among Others - Jo Walton
Fields of Gold - Rachel Swirsky
Messy - Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
Feed - M T Anderson
Avatar: the Last Airbender - The Promise (part 2) - Gene Luen Yang
Pretty much a mixed bag, but you've already heard my feelings about Among Others!
Definitely the highlight of the month was the Montmaray trilogy by Michelle Cooper. Like Among Others, it's historical fiction written as the diary of a teenage girl. Unlike Among Others, it's actually convincing, which is odd when you consider that the Montmaray trilogy is basically an Enid Blyton adventure with more social realism and gay people. Montmaray is a tiny fictional island kingdom roughly between England and Spain, and as the story opens it has less than ten inhabitants: the royal family and their four servants. Then there are Nazis! And everyone evacuates, and the self-sufficient, rather rough and tumble royals have to assimilate into upper-class English society! Even though the eldest princess is a socialist bluestocking who gets into fights with Oswald Mosley, and the crown prince is gay, and the middle princess is a sweet, clever girl who learned all the right lessons from Machiavelli, and the youngest is a semi-literate tomboy!
I kept reading along, going, "THIS SHOULD BE TERRIBLE! WHY IS IT SO GOOD?" (and it's true that the superficial terribleness of it all kept me from reading it for a couple of years), but I think it works because the main characters are so down to earth and funny, and also, in a world where the Mitford family exists, a ragtag group of minor royals stumbling through the Season and getting into fights with the Windsors seems fairly plausible. I didn't think the mood could be sustained through WW2, and it's true that I kept having to put The FitzOsbornes At War down while I had a little cry, but the story and the ending were very satisfying.
(I should also mention that Cooper is an Australian author, and now I totally have to read her other YA novel, The Rage of Sheep, but also the Montmaray books are available from the Kindle store now, and are being released in hardcopy in the American market with very pretty Cecil Beaton-style covers.)
Other than that, I really enjoyed Messy, which is the follow-up to last year's Spoiled, and has slightly less nutritional value than the chocolate-with-pop-rocks-and-jelly-beans on my desk, but it's terribly fun to read and makes me think of a contemporary Daria.
And, just to go for the minority opinion, I really enjoyed part 2 of "The Promise". ( Spoilers! )
