Sarah > Recent Status Updates

Must have overstated the last update.

The author has gone too far in trying to make Mary relatable, I think. Mary should not be anxious and over-sensitive about her piano playing and singing. The effect is to make everyone else brutally insensitive.

Picking this up again after watching the TV series. I find myself impatient to get beyond the P&P story. But I should be prepared for the characters to not be at their best given how unpleasant they were in the show.

Found the infamous error where someone is apparently knitting with sewing needles.

It feels too late in the story for any twist reveal.

The scene where Natalie's mother revealed that she had in fact divorced Natalie's father after her own infidelity didn't make any sense. It doesn't explain why the father couldn't be a part of his children's lives. Or offer any insight into Natalie's unkind personality.

Why would Shannon have a camera with film in it?

Why does Natalie do laundry in the 19th century using cold water?

Why does Mary think gray water left over from bathing is suitable for laundry?

How much laundry are they doing? I get the feeling she thinks that things will be washed after each wearing.

Is the modern-sounding dialogue in the historical Yesteryear evidence that it is fabricated or just a lack of effort from the author?

How is it possible that both Natalie and the people she despises are so despicable?

Natalie is worse and worse. The only character I don't hate is Mary. I don't see any way out of this. And I don't believe in any aspect of Natalie's characterization. Or Caleb's. Or Reena's.

Why did no one tell me this book was in the horror genre?

If hypothetically Natalie is capable of learning and changing, is the moral that she should expand her sexual repertoire?

I hope I don't have to wait too much longer for the thrilling revelation about what Yesteryear really is. All of the characters are portrayed as horrible.

Really disliking the structure going back and forth between Natalie's youth and her foray into the 1850s or thereabouts.

Puzzled as to why her eldest daughter in the 1850s seems to know that she doesn't understand anything.

Are both Natalie and her enemies bad? In the first section it seemed like her prejudice against the Angry Women was just smug but her first day at (inexplicably) Harvard was truly nightmarish.

Rather broad and unsubtle.

And the recap of Aunt Sadie describing childbirth as the worst pain in the world but one forgets between times is just so clumsy and inelegant compared to Nancy's version. When something is so delicious don't spoil it.

I don't feel very persuaded by the argument that of course Sydney was a loving mother because it's just "her daughters found her distant, but their cousins say Sydney was a better mother than their own" without any specific evidence. There is also a muddled claim that mothers are always better at caregiving than nannies, so mothers who delegate care shouldn't be surprised the children suffer. Wow.

Not quite happy with the handling of the antisemitic bigotry question. I know the author is unhappy about it but I think it is a mistake to scatter it around the way she does. It would be better off treated thoroughly in its own chapter.

Had to put it aside, waiting for it to come back from the library. I have seen 9 out of 10 episodes of the TV series. Mrs Bennet and all Mary's sisters are caricatures. I wish that the story had permitted Mary to visit each sister in turn. Maybe that is in the book more? In the TV series she is mostly with the Gardiners, briefly at Pemberley with all the Bennets, no Wickham or Bingley, Darcy keeps to himself.

I cannot stand having Lydia constantly rag Lizzy about possibly being interested in Wickham. It's so inartful. I'm going to have to let the book go back to the library and watch the rest of the TV series before I attempt it again. Then I will be able to skim at will.

I cannot understand Mary at all. Her thought processes seem to be designed to always put her in the wrong no matter how much information she has explicitly considered. I can't even understand the distinction she tries to make between rationality and feelings because she seems to categorize things I think are rational as feelings.

I have been watching the TV series which has skipped over most of the P&P pretty quickly and so I am impatient to get to the new post-P&P material in this book. Mary feels oversensitive compared to the character Jane Austen wrote, but on the flip side Lizzy seems unkind and Charlotte Lucas isn't much better.

Mary is a bit too much of a sad sack still. I feel like the author has changed her character because she thinks this is the only way we can empathize with her. I want more of the Mary who appears to enjoy herself even if others think she "wants taste".

Frustrated that not only did we spend so long foreshadowing Mary's disappointment when she wanted to be closer to her father, she anticipated his reaction and hid the gift without even offering it to him rather than bear it.

Annoyed by Mary's thought processes. Why wouldn't she have been aware that her mother would not approve and why? Why has she determined that her error was caused by feelings and passion?

I wish Mary's personality was not all about her being plain. There seems to be no reason why Lizzy considers Charlotte her best friend and shuns Mary when the focus is on appearance.

How old are the girls at the point where Lydia brings the news about the Meryton Ball? Surely the younger girls are not considered out yet? I will have to check how Austen handled it but I thought she mentioned the impropriety.

I am growing exasperated with Mary's thoughts, or at least with the narrator's insistence on her unhappiness. Her distance from her sisters seems unnatural or at least oversimplified. And it annoyed me that she thought of her seeing the oculist as defiance when what happened was she told her mother she needed it and her mother disclaimed all responsibility but permitted it.

I was looking forward to this and am still planning to watch the TV adaptation but I feel like Mary is getting set up as too downtrodden in this book. Maybe I haven't paid enough attention but Mary isn't usually presented as retiring. What's with her depression over being plain driving her to avoid her sisters and dress in dull colours?

I am not really vibing with Carr's style.

Fascinating so far. I wonder how much I am missing by never having read If on a winter's night a traveler? Or most of the other works mentioned? I have read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

I will be shocked if Hugh and Mary wind up together. If none of them committed the murder, I presume Mary will wind up with the Doctor and Hugh with Vicky. And my guess is that the murder weapon was set up to go off when the victim crossed the bridge, ensuring that the murderer would have witnesses that he was totally somewhere else at the time. The "hair slide" must be part of the apparatus.