New Blog!

Hey guys! Just FYI, I've decided to consolidate all my blogposts into one place! I'm still going to leave this blog here, because there are a lot of old posts, but going forward, my new book reviews will be on eustaciatan.com 

I'll still post the remaining NetGalley reviews here because I requested using this blog, but other than that, everything will be at the new blog. It won't be just book reviews too - it'll be book and tea reviews. For a start, I've copied some of my more recent posts over.

Hope to see you around(:

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

This book was a large reason why I finally read Jane Eyre - a serial killer satire of Jane Eyre sounded amazing. The peek that Wendy at Literary Feline gave into the book intrigued me and I decided that I had to read it.

Jane Steele is a big fan of Jane Eyre. However, she and Jane Eyre are vastly different - starting with the fact that she’s a serial murderess. But inspired by the book, Jane Steele decides to pen her memoirs.

This book is basically what happens when you take Jane Eyre and ask “what if I made her a feisty girl?” When faced with danger, this Jane repeatedly chooses the “fight” response, rather than flight or to bear the whole thing.

I found that many of my objections to Jane Eyre were addressed in this book. For example, this Jane is openly affectionate to her ward, Sahjara, who is an enchanting character in her own right. In general, I thought the non-Jane female characters here were a lot more sympathetically written and showed Jane’s generosity of spirit (no matter how evil she thinks herself).

I also found Charles Thornfield, the Mr. Rochester of the book, to be a decent human being. He has his demons, same as Rochester, but he managed to hold on to his sense of decency and never locked anyone (first wife or not) in an attic.

Speaking of the characters in this book, I absolutely loved how they came to life and participated in the story. Jane Eyre was very much about Jane and her experiences and feelings. Jane Steele has Jane become involved in the lives of the people around her, which lead to both mystery and adventure. Needless to say, I found the plot (and characters) of this book to be much more entertaining.

It’s pretty rare that I say this, but I like this satirical look at Jane Eyre much more than the original story. If all the Jane Eyre adaptions are this good, then I definitely will not regret reading the original anymore.

Imagining Shakespeare's Wife by Katherine West Scheil

I've had a slight increase in interest in Shakespeare ever since last year when we visited Stratford-upon-Avon and the Globe in London. So when I saw this book on Anne Hathaway, I decided to request a copy.

As with Shakespeare, we know very few details about Anne Hathaway's life, which makes it very easy for historians to reimagine her the way they want. Imagining Shakespeare's Wife first takes us through the known facts of Anne Hathaway and her legacy, and then goes through the ways that she has been represented in great detail.

The sad fact is that Anne has always been used to illuminate aspects of her husband. As his wife, she would have known (and could have said) a lot about his character. And since she was about seven years older than him, speculation about their marriage has been rife. If people want to portray Shakespeare as a libertine man about town, they tend to view Anne and her marriage to Shakespeare very negatively. If people want to view Shakespeare as a great moral character, they tend to view Anne as someone embodying feminine virtues. And in recent years, Anne has been re-interpreted (sometimes drastically in novels) to fit certain feminist messages.

Obviously, this was a fascinating read. I've always felt a certain sympathy for the way Anne has been portrayed because it has been really unflattering at times. To see how people have interpreted her silence is really astounding. And like James Shapiro said in Contested Will, there is very little we know about Shakespeare's personal life, which means that the temptation to read into his marriage through his works is very great.

If you're interested in Shakespeare, I think you'd enjoy this. It's fairly easy to read and contains a lot of great analysis about the ways Anne Hathaway has been interpreted throughout history. It's probably not related to any of Shakespeare's plays (except for the part where people use his plays to pass judgment on her) but if you want to know more about the Bard and his Wife, this is a book to read.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

Black Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin

I don’t know why this is a classy thriller (or what a classy thriller even is) but this was good!

Black Eyed Susan follows Tessa, the only survivor of a serial killer. Dubbed ‘black eyed susan’ because she was found in a field of those flowers, Tessa does her best to give her and her daughter a normal life. But, she suspects that the man she helped put in prison is actually innocent, and as she helps his defence team, things happen. Things that suggest that maybe, just maybe, the killer is still out there.

The book follows Tessa in the present day and Tessa in 1995, just before the trial. Since it’s the same person, it was pretty easy to follow the narrative.

So Tessa is actually working through a lot of trauma, both then and now, and she’s trying to recover her lost memories. I thought having the chapters alternate between her past and present self was a good way to show how similar but different she has become.

While most of the book got me riveted, I’ve got to admit that the first chapter was confusing. I actually thought that present day Tessa was still very young, despite what it said on the blurb because she referred to herself as a ‘waif’ and that’s normally used for young women.

And while I like most of the story, I wasn’t really a fan of Tessa’s romance. It didn’t feel very necessary but I am not really a fan of most romance subplots so there’s that.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. The black eyed Susans were present throughout the story and made it slightly creepy. And while the ending wasn’t as explosive as I thought, it was still satisfying.