Well, I finished Tess of the D'Urbervilles over the weekend, which as before, was a great read. It's tragic, and will make you angry, but has such great messages! Written during the Victorian era, Thomas Hardy pretty much let this be his last novel after being labeled a pornographer for this novel and Jude the Obscure. That bothered him so much, that he stopped writing novels and went back to just writing poetry. At a time when his message of hypocrisy towards women and their virtue was misunderstood, I think he did an amazing job of causing a stir so that people would maybe rethink their cultural viewpoint. Great novel.
I also finished rea
ding Megan McCafferty's second novel in her series, Second Helpings. Like the first novel, I found the teen characters way too obsessed with the status of their virginity; however, I think this novel was able to develop some important relationships between characters that the first struggled to build. As a reminder, the story is basically about a brainiac girl whose best friend moves out of state. As she tries to rebuild her high school life, she finds that the hypocrisy of teens to be just about too much for her, and she tries to be herself...which is ironic, because she spends more time in the novel protecting herself from getting hurt by pretending that nothing bothers her! During the course of the novel, our main character applies for, and gets accepted into college, and falls in love (twice...sort of). The conversations going on are still pretty PG-13/R, and I could see why McCafferty's switch moved from YA with the first novel, to the adult section with her later books. I still wonder if her teen readers will be following her as she moves her character into her college years? I understand that it's hard to market a story about a teenager to adults, but making the cross over into genres part way through the series seems odd to me. Oh well...In the world of film, I watched The Forsyte Saga, about a British aristocratic family li
ving in London at the turn of the century. Extended branches of the Forsyte's get married, have children, marry for love and not for love, deal with gambling issues, build extravagant country estates, have children, etc. It honestly felt a little bit like Dynasty in the British Victorian to Edwardian era. Netflix recommended it to me because of all the other British dramas I've been watching, so I guess they threw this one my way. While not really what I expected or wanted, still more entertaining than many other things I could have been watching while I finished up my grading!Well, I have to get ready for the day...so, until next time...bye! :)
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