The Young Adult Historical Fiction Society discussion

Happy new year everyone <3 We are reading "In the Company of Swans" for this month's group read :-) let me know your thoughts whether you're reading it now or have read it before!

Just finished this book recently. Took me a little time to get used to Eva Ibbotson's style, but overall I liked the main character, Harriet, and her love interest. The ending was pretty cool, though. I wasn't sure what direction the story would take, but it was satisfying. :-) The setting is cool, too - it first takes place in London and then mainly in Brazil.

It was a sweet book, definitely one for this group to love. It was a little old-fashioned I thought, but considering the time it was set in and the year it was written, I think that's understandable. It was still lovely. I think Harriet's family was simply horrid though. In a properly English way.

Yes, I didn't know it was written a while ago :-) I know the author was old, but I didn't look at the publication date until recently.

Ever read any of her other books?

No, I haven't. Any good? I think that she had a great balance of everything.

I haven't, but I own one of her books - I think the one called the Morning Gift :-) I've been wanting to read A Countess Below Stairs, too.

She has books in several different genres. I've read and really liked it. It's more elementary school than YA and is fantasy.

Haven't started In the Company of Swans yet but I will as soon as Christie is finished with the audio book--we use the same library.

I'm about halfway through this one. The author's writing style, especially when writing about England and Harriet's family reminds me of Jane Austen in a way. All very proper but hilarious in a tongue-in-cheek way. Everything is oh so proper.

I loved A Company of Swans! It was sweet, but not too sweet, in my eyes. In a happy bit of kismet, my daughter chose Journey to the River Sea as our latest read-aloud the day after I started reading ACOS. It took me a couple of days to realize that both books were by the same author. The settings are the same--they start in England and travel to the Amazon. We are really enjoying the read-aloud!

I started it yesterday but will not finish by the end of January. I'm not very far but do intend to finish.

Hello Everyone, my name is Robert Spiller and I am a new member. I would appreciate any advice (I read your guidelines) about how to post, submit books for reading (I am a YA author, but I'm not necessarily talking about my own works), and how old a book must be to be considered historical. If this was not the appropriate place to introduce myself, I apologize and once again would be grateful for guidance on where the appropriate place for that might be.

Hi Robert :-) that's okay! Introductions go in the introductions topic: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5... Welcome to the group! This is this month's group read topic. Here are guidelines for books to pick for reading each month: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...

Can the rules be updated so that they no longer include the theme information, since we are not doing themes?

Emily wrote: "Can the rules be updated so that they no longer include the theme information, since we are not doing themes?"

Thanks for the input, Emily. I didn't notice that. XD I'll update as soon as I have time this weekend.

I finished this book on January 31. Yay for finishing in the month we are reading it!!! It started slow for me and I got a bit frustrated with all the ballet terms, around the middle it picked up for me and I enjoyed it all the way to the end. It was a fun and fluffy read, not anything too serious which I need from time to time. I found the book to be quite hilarious at times. I did feel that it might have been a bit mature for a YA audience. Did anyone else feel that?

It was strange, Christie, because I felt that the characters and the book were a little mature, but at the same time I felt they were a bit more naive. I just put it down to the age of the book - people grew up faster then and didn't deal with the types of things that are realistic today.

The author had originally published this book and others for an adult audience (billed as "light historical romance"). The publisher has since repackaged them for the YA crowd.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/...

That's interesting, I didn't know they were originally intended for an adult audience!

Yeah, now that I look back at it, the characters were pretty mature. I think it was appropriate for the time period, though.

The climax was cool :-)

I'm still listening to it, but I like it. I absolutely consider it adult, though. Maybe if it were published today it would fall into the catagory "new adult" (a classification I happen to strongly dislike).

Emily wrote: "I'm still listening to it, but I like it. I absolutely consider it adult, though. Maybe if it were published today it would fall into the catagory "new adult" (a classification I happen to strong..."

What do you dislike about the category? Never heard of it. Sounds like a type of book that people read after they "graduate" XD from the young adult/teen category, right?

This is my personal opinion, but I don't think the catagory needs to exist. In my mind, it's a way for people to cash in on the currently popular tag "young adult" yet have characters who are not in high school and who deal with more mature themes. We have that already, it's called "adult fiction."

A link to the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New-adul...