Hello everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. In this post, I will be doing a wrap up of all the books I read in November.
Since July, I’ve slowed so much in my reading that I don’t think I’ll complete my reading challenge this year. But this month I finished 9 books. Also I have read more classics in 2023 than I did in 2022, and that’s because classics are the type of books I gravitate to when I need to relax. And you’ll notice that 6 out of the 9 books I read in November are classics. This might not be the preference of many, but this month I also tried to complete another one of the reading challenges I wanted to do this year. And that’s to read all of Jane Austen’s novels. I read two in April, and this month I was able to finish three. The last novel I will read in December. Here are my thoughts on all the books I read in November:
1. CLASSIC: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility is the first of Jane Austen’s novels to have been published, and it is the story of Elinor and Marianne. One is the epitome of sense and the second the quintessence of sensibility. The relationship between these two sisters is the core of the story; they help each other and look out for each other. But Marianne’s doomed love and affair with Willoughby brings home what Jane Austen is trying to criticize about 19th century England in this book: that most people just look for money when they marry and are far removed from the realm of sentiment. John Dashwood, Elinor and Marianne’s half-brother is one such person; he loves money and is utterly and completely controlled by those who have money. Lucy Steele is also one of these people, and when she leaves Edward to marry his brother Robert because he is now the heir of the Ferrars’ family fortune, Jane Austen is saying that attaining money is sadly the main signifier of most people’s worth.
Both Marianne’s marriage to Colonel Brandon and Elinor’s to Edward at the end of the book contrast with this set of mind and highlights the values of people who marry for love and happiness.
2. HISTORY: Venus and Aphrodite, History of a Goddess by Bethany Hughes
Though I liked this book, I also think that it is too short for what it intends to do. A history of the Goddess of love and sex? Yes, please. An account of the myths, ancient art and archeological discoveries associated with the Goddess, of which there have been several in the past few years? Yes, again, please. Unfortunately, this book barely scratches the surface and lacks the depth I was hoping for. Each one of the topics that this book goes into, such as the birth of the goddess in Cyprus and/or her evolution into the goddesses of the Middle East, Ishtar, Inanna, and Astarte, are cursory and talked about in a rather brief fashion and that is not what I was expecting. I was looking for an in depth study of the life, myths, and archeological discoveries of this heavily misunderstood and disreputed goddess. This is not that. I liked it but I will probably not read it again.
3. FANTASY: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
This is the first book in the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness. This book is a fantasy romance, and you know how I am with romance books. We don’t get along very well, but I keep picking them up because I do like romance. The problem is the execution. So, here are my issues with this book.
I didn’t mind that Diana is a witch (because apparently I do mind since characters with supernatural powers are not my favorite, but that’s not true). What I did mind though was that she is a Mary Sue. And she is one of the worst ones. Second, this is a very long book (almost 600 pages) and for most of it, nothing happens. For the first 150 pages or so, for example, Diana just keeps going over and over to the library. I get that the library is where she first becomes aware of the confrontations brewing up in the magical world and where she is forced to spend time with Matthew, but there are big chunks of the book where absolutely nothing happens. And this is detrimental to character development. I mean, why are all the wine drinking scenes important? Or the yoga scenes? Yoga? Really? It almost felt like the author had been paid by the word.
The story itself is a combination of Twilight and Practical Magic. Diana is Sally Owens 2.0. A witch who denies her heritage. But when Matthew leaves Diana in France with his mother to go back to Oxford and Diana starts crying and eventually flooding the entire castle, it’s Bella in her depression after Edward leaves her in New Moon. It’s a romance between a human and a vampire, a relationship heavily frowned upon by The Covenant (or the Volturi?), and she has two aunts back in the States (like Sally Owens and her sister). The only difference is that I liked where Sally Owens ends, though I didn’t like her, (see my review here) yet she redeems herself in the end. Diana? I don’t care enough to know where she ends. Diana is also the equivalent of Renesmee because both her parents are the quintessential alchemical couple and their union produced a chimera. Of course. Again, Mary Sue much?
I also did not like that once Diana falls in love with Matthew, she completely loses her brains. She becomes insufferable. Her relationship with Matthew isn’t as toxic as that of Bella and Edward, but Matthew is still pretty controlling and possessive and I found that I wasn’t that into them as a couple. So I’m glad that there weren’t any intimate scenes between the two of them because I probably wouldn’t have read them. Yes, they had their cute moments but I wasn’t much attracted to the idea of a human woman getting it on with a vampire and his cold skin. It just made me chilly and cold.
All in all, there were things I liked about this book. And that’s the history behind it. I also liked that it’s set in Oxford. But that’s pretty much it. I’m not going to continue on with the series.
4. CLASSIC: Emma by Jane Austen
Honestly, I didn’t think I would like Emma by Jane Austen all that much. In fact, it took me a bit to pick it up but I ended up liking it more than I thought I would. Emma is a deeply flawed character; she is easily jealous of others, judgmental, and selfish. And this, I think, is what sets her apart from all of Jane Austen’s other heroines. But Emma’s most important flaw is pride. She is pretty, wealthy, and most importantly, vain. She also discriminates against people that belong to a lower social class than she; most notably, Robert Martin. However, Emma’s experiences in meddling with other people’s love lives teaches her an important lesson: just because you have money, it doesn’t mean that you’re a nice person. And this includes Emma herself. The prime example of a terrible human being though is Mr. Elton, seconded by his wife, Mrs. Elton.
This book is a nice reality check for someone who thinks too much of themselves and is proud of it.
5. POETRY: Paradise Lost by John Milton
I first read Paradise Lost in college and I loved it. Back then, I read it in Spanish but I didn’t think too much about the translation I picked up. Today, I have become more selective on translations of classical books because I have learned that it matters. Not that I loved this book any less now that I read it again, but I can tell you that reading it in Spanish first and then in English almost 20 years later is a peculiar experience. This book is hard, the English full of little details that I was too young to pick up on my first read or that I am sure did not translate well or at all to the Spanish edition.
This book is also one that rarely anyone picks up in Mexico and is only read in high educational circles. But in my case, it cemented my love for epic poetry.
6. FICTION: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
We had a cheap mass paperback copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at my house while my sisters and I were growing up and I never picked it up. It wasn’t until I was encouraged to do so for one of my book clubs to celebrate the current holiday season that I did, and unfortunately it is one of my biggest disappointments of the year. I liked the story, but there were two things that prevented me from loving this book. One, it is too short and there is little space for the author to show us Scrooge’s character development. I did enjoy the description of what each ghost shows Scrooge, but the author doesn’t go back to Scrooge to show us how each vision changes him. He’s just changed in the end. And second, the author’s writing style. Maybe it’s the way Dickens writes and his propensity to stop a chapter at a cliff hanger, having published all of his works on a chapter per chapter basis every week or month, like Alexandre Dumas, but I do not like that way of writing. But the cliff hangers themselves don’t bother me. It’s how everything happens so fast there’s no room to catch our breath and watch it all happen. This is also the reason why I haven’t been able to finish The Count of Montecristo. I tried reading A Tale of Two Cities by this author too, and the same thing happened. So I DNF’d it.
7. MEMOIR: Is Rape A Crime? A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto by Michelle Bowdler
I usually don’t rate memoirs as I do other books, but I think that this book is worth picking up. In this memoir, the author relates her experience as a rape victim to create consciousness in a society where most cases remain unsolved and the perpetrators go unpunished. In telling her story, first of the event itself and then in trying to figure out if whoever did it was punished for the crime, the author not only tells her own experience but that of thousands of women. And this includes not only victims of rape but also of sexual harassment and assault. These are serious offenses. They affect a victim’s life. And it is important to raise our voices to let ourselves be heard. These are not victimless crimes.
Personally, I think that what the author is doing here is very brave and commend her for it.
8. CLASSIC: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
This book is not my favorite novel by Jane Austen, but I did enjoy it. I did not know that it’s considered a young adult novel and it makes sense, considering the heroine’s naiveté and gullibility. But this in itself doesn’t make her unlikeable. She’s only sixteen, and the book is about her growing up. About realizing that the world isn’t as it is in novels; that instead of mysterious and supernatural, as in Gothic novels, which were very popular in Austen’s time, the world is rather mundane and ordinary. People, too, aren’t always what they seem and Catherine learns this important lesson when Isabella Thorpe cheats on her brother with Captain Tilney.
I intend, however, to read this book again after I read The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian by Ann Radcliffe next year. As much as Jane Austen mentions these two novels in Northanger Abbey, I think it is important to pick them up as well because there is something that I couldn’t figure out very well. And that is John Thorpe. Both he and General Tilney are the antagonists of this novel, but I think that John Thorpe is even more so though for all appearances he is not. Let’s see.
9. CHILDREN’S BOOK: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Friendship is at the heart of this children’s book, and the sacrifices that one makes for the well-being of our friends. I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would, honestly, and found that it is a lot more complex than you would think. Wilbur The Pig yearns for a true friend, and those that he thought were his friends, like Fern, Templeton, and the goose, but most notably the little girl Fern, who later abandons him, weren’t his true friends. His true friend is Charlotte, a spider that lives in the barn, who sacrifices herself so Wilbur can live a long and happy life. Charlotte’s sacrifice is both heartwarming and heartbreaking, and her death is the saddest part of the book. However, she lives on in the three baby spiders that decide to stay on the farm and keep Wilbur company.
This is a very nice story, and I will encourage my children to read it someday as it teaches them important values such as friendship, empathy, and love. However, it also touches upon death, grief, and the loss of a loved one. And these, I think, are topics that children need to be exposed to, yes, but at an age when they can understand it better, if not completely.
These are all the books I read in November. Thank you for reading and see you next time.
