Two books.
This week I read two books that I did not care for. Both were a little high on the sex and gore for my taste. Both of them could have been better – the first if it had been more focused and the second if there had been a little less Lolita going on.
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse was the first book, and I read it for my book club. We chose it because it’s supposed to kind of be like The Da Vinci Code with female protagonists. I personally did not care for The Da Vinci Code, but many of the ladies in my book club did, so we decided to try it.
There were two stories, Alice in 2005 and Alais in 1209. Their stories paralleled and revealed how the Grail was hidden and then found again. Meanwhile, there was a lot of history about the Crusades in France, specifically against the Cathars, which I did not know anything about That was where the gore came in. I don’t tend to read this kind of book very often, so I’m not sure if the “spurting blood†is just part of the genre, but it was definitely not to my taste.
On one hand, I did enjoy what I learned about that time period in France. On the other hand, the book was just too long, and after 350 pages it really started to drag . . . and I still had 150 pages left. I think it started dragging for the author, too, because the last 150 pages had a big section that summed up a lot of what happened for Alais, telling us rather than showing us. It probably would have been better to cut down some of the earlier sections and give us a little more of that action. Overall, I don’t recommend it, though I think we should have an interesting discussion next week.
The second book was The Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin. This is another book that had stories from two different times paralleling each other. This time it was Anna in 1976 and Stephen in 1819. Stephen, a soldier who had fought in Waterloo, has settled at Kersey, his cousin’s estate. In 1976, Anna comes to stay at Kersey, which has been turned into an unsuccessful school by her uncle.
To be honest, the stories seemed like they were kind of a mess. I think this book actually needed more time to do what it was trying to do, though at 400 pages, I probably wouldn’t have had patience for much more. It didn’t drag like Labyrinth, though - I just think the story needed some clarifying. Stephen struggles with his missing leg, the violence he saw as a soldier (that’s where the gore comes in) and his lost love, Catalina, while embarking on a new relationship with a young woman named Lucy. This plot seemed pretty straightforward – he had to deal with his past demons (that’s where the sex comes in) before he could embark on a new relationship. Some of the things that were set up were never really followed through on or dealt with credibly, such as the action at Peterloo in the beginning.
However, the glossing over in that plot was nothing compared to the glossing over in Anna’s story, where the impact of her sleeping with her next-door neighbor, who was old enough to be her grandfather (did I mention she’s 15?) wasn’t dealt with at all. Nor did I feel her family storyline was resolved satisfactorily. The book spent a fair amount of time setting up the fact that her mother is undependable, and after the events in the story happened, her mother showed up to help . . . and I’m not sure what, exactly, I was supposed to think about that. A happy ending was implied, but certainly not earned.
Up next is something I’m looking forward to: Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos. It’s just chick lit, but I have earned something light and funny after these last two.
