Kristin Hannah is always good, but this one... I don't know. A little preachy, maybe? Nora seems holier-than-thou in pressing families to stay togetheKristin Hannah is always good, but this one... I don't know. A little preachy, maybe? Nora seems holier-than-thou in pressing families to stay together. Maybe I misread, but I had a sense of, "You committed to each other, now stay there 'til death do you part, already!" And I just don't agree with that. If love is still there and you're just sore at each other or neglecting your relationship, then maybe. But if there's abuse (physical, emotional/psychological, sexual, substance), or if you married way too young or too fast and you've grown into very different people who want very different things, or if there's no repentance for serious misdeeds (or empty repentance), or if the marriage is dead and no one cares to resuscitate it, let that shit go. Life is too short to spend it miserable. You definitely, and maybe they too, deserve better.
And I couldn't get a handle on her timeline. The copyright date is 2010, and Ruby is 27, which puts her birth year at 1983. So why does she have a vinyl copy of Bananarama's "Cruel Summer?" She would have been a newborn when that song was released, vinyl wasn't hip when she was old enough to enjoy the song, and her family was supposedly pretty strapped in her youth so even if her parents liked the song why are they shelling out for a record of it? That's certainly not the only instance, but there are anachronisms like that scattered throughout that almost make her seem like she must have been born in the mid-70s. I just feel like that's sloppy writing or editing or both.
Anyway, not her best work. But it's still Kristin Hannah, and it still made me tear up and made laugh out loud in places....more
This book was a study in unrealized potential. Some other reviewers have complained first and foremost about the historical inaccuracies, and those weThis book was a study in unrealized potential. Some other reviewers have complained first and foremost about the historical inaccuracies, and those were certainly clear and present, but I was able to move past those fairly easily. What got me was how good this book *could* have been.
The story itself was almost good; in some ways it almost reminded me of Phantom of the Opera. But it fell short every time. The main characters were almost clearly drawn, but their actions kept veering into the unrealistic and melodramatic. The female lead is a teenager, lives in poverty, assists her father in his bloodletting practice, is emotionally and mentally abused by her mother, but goes all grrl power and acts determined to pursue her dream of becoming a physician. In 17th century Bohemia. Uh huh, sure. That's plausible. The male romantic character appears fairly early in the story, largely disappears for half the book, reappears two-thirds of the way through declaring his love for the female lead (sorry, spoiler) and his intention to marry her... after briefly meeting her once. Right. The terror exacted upon the village by Don Julius is palpable, and he may be the most clearly and truly depicted character. The author jammed historical contemporaries in and had them cross paths (Jesenius and Kepler, among others), which they may well have done, but these interactions were - at most - minorly germane to the story. She addressed the struggle between the Hapsburg royal family for control of the throne, but only skimmed the surface.
Basically, this was a good first draft, an excellent outline, but desperately needed a capable author to flesh out the plot, refine the characters into believability, and enhance the historical aspect (to say nothing of the historical facts) a la Victor Hugo (though maybe I was the only person who enjoyed the historical interludes in Les Mis)....more
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