Betsie Ann > Recent Status Updates

The author has Grace thinking of Marilyn Monroe studying Method acting under Lee Strasberg, in a chapter taking place in 1951- only problem is MM didn't do that until 1955, and she and Grace never met. The author's mention of MM here feels more like an excuse to include her personal view of the actress than it does anything to do with Grace.

Maybe I'm being picky, but... Aristotle Onassis never named his yacht Christina O. He named it Christina, after his daughter, and after his death, once the yacht passed from his family to a new owner, that man christened it the Christina O in a nod to Jackie O. So to refer to the yacht in a chapter taking place in 1969 as the Christina O is wrong.

Already disagree with Maher's representation of Grace. How the author frames the famous photos by Howell Conant isn't accurate: that photo of Grace rising out of the water with a slight smile- Howell had been taking photos while Grace was snorkeling, but that obscured her face, so he told her to take it off. Maher is close to the truth, but not quite. I've wanted to read this for years, so I'll give it a chance.

I genuinely enjoy the author's use of real physics to enhance her fantasy world, along with the clever banter, and the different POVs that actually read like individual voices. But, and it's a major but... Why did the author feel the need to constantly call out everything Western as bad? She just has to remind the reader Western philosophers, scientists, psychiatrists, etc. were backward. Where is the plot again?

The writing is addictive, but the author uses every chance she has to badmouth Western culture, and I am tired of it already, and I'm not even a quarter through the book.

Why didn't Katherine Arden write Tamara's story? Never mind World War 1 and unicorn hunters, we want Vasya's grandmother's story. Imagine it- Kaschai the Deathless as the immortal, and add Ivan, and there would be a love triangle. Plus magical horses, Baba Yaga as an actual character, and it would add definition to the story that comes after in the Winternight trilogy.

"Ravenously avoiding each other"
Really? The author put those words together in a sentence? Umm...not so sure about this.

This is truly great. Are there some flaws? Yes. Do I still disagree with parts of the author's worldview? Also yes, nevertheless, this series deserves to be remembered. It is going to remain a favorite of mine for sure.
A pity that the author hasn't been able to replicate the entrancing ingredients she used here.

There is a line from a certain movie about how a question always involves the audience, while an answer does not. I believe that is the main reason this series is so entrancing: it asks questions, and the reader is forced to grapple with them, and think about the real-life implications. And that is what all the great fairytales do.

This book is fascinating. Insight into two great minds of the Middle Ages. But it also reminds me how ignorant Europeans were about so many medical and physical things at this time.

I vacillate as to which book in the Winternight trilogy is my favorite, but each time I begin The Girl in the Tower I am swept away, so it is probably this one.

It was a choice to make the heroine Catholic. So far the portrayal holds true, but we'll see if the author continues to be realistic.

Love these books, so I'm doing a reread, but I have to point out the historical- if not inaccuracy at least improbability of the heroine being 5 ft. 4 in. and thinking herself "hardly substantial." The average Italian woman in 1880 was 5 ft. and even though the heroine is Northern Italian: they're usually taller, no woman in 1880 would have thought herself petite at 5 ft. 4 in. That is the average height today.

Chernobog was an ancient Slav devil, their god of darkness, and we know about him because Christian priests decided to write about him because he was so remiscent of Satan.
There's your random tidbit for the day!

'It was violet eventide when Vasya came into the kitchen, still flushed with the day's sun. She seized her bowl and spoon, claimed a portion for herself, and took it to the window.'

Taking my time. At first writing in the margins was scary, but now I quite like that I can jot down my thoughts as they come. And I'm having fun looking up definitions of foreign words: that provides extra background and historicity to the narrative.