Monday, May 28, 2012

Mini reviews - The Queen by Robert Lacey, Mia's Baker's Dozen by Coco Simon, Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

It's mini review time! I will write only mini reviews till I've caught up.

The Queen: A Life in Brief by Robert Lacey is a book written by a biographer who has written a large number of books about royalty. At a mere 166 pages, the author gives readers a comfortably brief overview of Queen Elizabeth II's life and 60-year reign. The Queen contains excerpts from some of Lacey's other books, as well as some updated material, and was written especially for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee.

I think I can pretty safely say I knew next to nothing about Queen Elizabeth and her family and I'm happy not to have read a book that went into greater depth of detail. While I found the queen herself admirable in many ways and particularly enjoyed reading that her marriage was a true love story, Prince Charles pretty much made me want to heave. I had no idea he was such a naughty boy. During the actual Princess Diana years (when they were occurring, that is), I must admit I was more captivated by her wardrobe than the drama of the royal family and the many affairs. There is a single line in the book that I consider offensive and unnecessary, but otherwise The Queen is very nicely written.

Recommended to those who want to learn about the last 80 years or so of the British Monarchy in brief but are not interested in tremendous detail. If you're looking for a more comprehensive biography, check the page lengths of Lacey's books. He's written quite a few and The Queen: A Life in Brief is the shortest. The Queen was the perfect blend for me and also contains a surprisingly nice variety of photographs for such a small book.

Mia's Baker's Dozen by Coco Simon is one of the books in the Cupcake Diaries series, for ages 8 and up, about a group of young girls who have a small business selling cupcakes. I won my copy in a Twitter drawing, which I entered because I like to regress, now and then.

Mia's parents speak Spanish and so does Mia, but she has never learned to read or write Spanish. When she's enrolled in an advanced Spanish class and has difficulty, Mia's embarrassed to admit that she needs help. She is also thrown out of kilter by the changes in her life, now that her parents have divorced and her mother is remarried.

Mia's Baker's Dozen is very simplistically written. It was fun reading about Mia's challenges and friendships and how she solves her problems. I'm pretty sure I would have gobbled a series like this happily, as a young girl, and definitely recommend this title to youngsters in the right age range. It's nice, clean fun. Reading the book made me want to go play in the kitchen.

Next to Love by Ellen Feldman tells the stories of three women, friends from a young age who are all left behind when their men go off to fight in WWII. The story is based on one small town's loss of a large number of its young men in a single battle. Two of the women are widowed; one is not, but the surviving husband returns with a permanent injury and post-traumatic stress.

Next to Love follows the three women from before WWII to the Sixties and is packed with the love, loss, temptation, danger, violence, prejudice and other challenges of life for women during the time period.

I really enjoyed Next to Love because the relationships and challenges seemed very realistic to me, but there were a couple things I disliked about the book. Chiefly, I disliked the first-person narrative and jumpiness. I liked the fact that the author chose to portray each of the women from her own viewpoint, but instead of going from one character to another and showing how each reacted at a particular time, for example, there would be three scenes from Babe's perspective that take place from September of 1944 to July of 1946 and then you jump back to September of 1944 to view Grace's perspective. And, then the same thing is done all over again with Millie. Jarring.

On the plus side, Next to Love has the ring of a book that has been exceptionally well researched. The sense of time and place throughout the book is both believable and occasionally even reminded me of things my parents mentioned. Definitely recommended for those who enjoy WWII novels and women's fiction.

More minis forthcoming.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

10 comments:

  1. Im actually interested in the queen book. I have a strange obsession with the English monarchy and English history in general.

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    1. I have a sort of distant obsession, I guess. I'm more in it for the pretty pictures, but I do find royal-watching kind of fun and English history is definitely fascinating. Go for it. I think it's nicely written, apart from that one particularly vulgar sentence (which still strikes me as bizarrely out of place and certainly unnecessary).

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  2. I'm anxious to read The Queen and Next to Love!

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    1. Both are really good. I think you'll especially enjoy Next to Love.

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  3. I have Next to Love on my shelf, given to me by a very good blogging friend. I also am a little hesitant to read The Queen, as I saw a movie depicting her life, and wasn't all that impressed with it. I know it's silly to ignore this book based on a movie I saw years ago, but for some reason, I can't get over the harshness and severity of that movie!

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    1. I know the movie you're referring to. My husband bought it for me and I actually didn't want to watch it! I don't like biopics -- tend to dislike watching movies about real people because I don't trust their accuracy. Husband said he liked it (and is still a little miffed that I didn't watch it). The book really describes her as a very admirable woman. I think . . . is the movie about the time after Princess Diana died? It sounded like she was very bent on sticking with tradition and protecting the two princes to let them grieve in private but eventually was convinced that the public just wasn't going to stand for that. She hasn't seen the movie, according to the book. :)

      I really enjoyed Next to Love. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

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  4. Glad to see you enjoyed Next to Love. I absolutely loved it, mostly because it showed how the war effects everyone, not just those fighting on the front lines.

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    1. Absolutely. I loved the fact that Next to Love not only showed the point of view of the people left behind but also showed how war continued to impact their lives long after it ended. I'm glad you loved it, too!

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  5. **affects** oops! ;)

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    1. I always get those confused!!! :)

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