Book Review – Sherwood by Meagan Spooner

17 Monday May 2021

Posted by Jessica Wood in adaptation, Blog, book review, books, story

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book review, historical fiction, Robin Hood, robin hood book, ya, young adult book

This re-telling of the Robin Hood legend puts a modern feminist twist on a centuries old story.

When the hero Robin of Locksley dies in a crusade to the Holy Land, Nottingham is plunged into poverty and turmoil. His betrothed Maid Marion is left to pick up the pieces when the Sheriff raises taxes and King Richard is nowhere around to help his own people. Putting on her beloved’s cloak, she disguises herself as Nottingham’s hero and rounds up a team of Merry Men to bring justice to the land. But with Guy of Gisborne both out to catch ‘Robin Hood’ and win Marion’s broken heart, she’ll have to use every ounce of cunning she has.

There seem to be quite a few feminist re-tellings of Robin Hood and similar legends lately. This one has a lot that will appeal to modern women without sacrificing any historical accuracy. In fact, many of the issues brought up are as painfully relevant to the modern day as they were in medieval times. For example, when Marion is disguised as Robin, the Merry Men follow her plans without hesitation. But when she is presenting as herself, they talk over her, question her ideas, and treat her like a fragile flower in need of protection. Although the men are portrayed as heroic, likeable characters, it says a lot how even they are conditioned to treat men and women differently.

Guy of Gisborne was another great surprise in this book. At first, I assumed that following most adaptations, he would be a standard villain and unwanted suitor to Marion, sort of like Gaston. But the number of twists and turns for his character threw me back and made me change my entire perspective on his character.

The only real downside to this novel is that the first half drags in comparison to the action-packed second half and risks putting off some readers. Although this does leave plenty of time to set up Marion’s position of Robin Hood and portray her grieving with heart-breaking accuracy.

Any young adult readers or those looking for a relatable, strong female protagonist will find this book a sharp-shooting adventure.

My rating – 5 out of 5.

Book Review – A Company of Swans

18 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by Jessica Wood in Blog, book review, culture, musings, romance, story, villain, writing

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a company of swans, ballet, book review, books, edwardian fiction, historical fiction, reading, romance fiction, ya, ya fiction, ya historical fiction, ya literature, ya romance

A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson. Published by Macmillan Children’s Books.

A Company of Swans is a coming of age story following the journey of 18 year old Harriet Morton in 1912. Under the strict supervision of her father, who is literally the most boring professor in the world, her spinster aunt, and the local Ladies’ Tea Circle, Harriet lives a joyless life. Despite her academic upbringing, her father won’t let her go to university as he expects her to marry her suitor, a young zoology professor named Dr. Edward Finch-Dutton. Harriet’s only outlet is her weekly ballet classes, which she excels at. When she is offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to join a famous Russian ballet company and perform in the most luxurious opera house in the world, Harriet is ecstatic but of course her father refuses.

Harriet defies her father and runs away to join the troupe regardless. In the far away exotic city of Manaus in Brazil, she performs for the rich rubber barons and wins the heart of the charming owner of the opera house. But her father, aunt, and would-be-fiancé are eager to bring her back and are on her tail.

Instantly, this book ticks all of my boxes. A strong and likeable female protagonist? Yes. A girl in a historical setting defying the patriarchy? Yes. Ballet? Hell yes! Any other readers who are into such things will enjoy this novel as well. Even those who aren’t into ballet can enjoy it for its other elements. Although the book is classed as young adult, there is plenty for older readers to get into as well (although not so much younger readers due to a few risque plot points).

While the father and aunt are fairly stereotypical characters, I appreciated that Harriet’s suitor Edward isn’t the standard evil fiancé who is only there to make the main love interest look better by comparison. There are surprisingly several things to like about him. He allows female students in his class, which Harriet’s father wouldn’t dream of, and he is an accomplished and passionate zoologist at a time when the science was still new and under-appreciated. In fact, his love of discovering new insect species could be compared to Harriet’s love of ballet. His desire to ‘save’ Harriet isn’t out of a sense of evil or a need to possess her but out of a misplaced sense of Edwardian manliness.

The major let down for me, however, was the ending. I won’t spoil it but it did turn out differently from what I was hoping for. Perhaps it is unfair of me to judge historical fiction from a modern day feminist perspective but considering how the rest of the book was such a great ‘screw you’ to social norms at the time, it was a disappointment. It is still a happy ending and much more than what a young girl of Harriet’s social class could expect at the time but some readers may also be put off by this ending.

The book is generally well written but the flowery language and sudden point of view shifts can be distracting. The author also has a tendency to delve into the backstory of everyone and everything as soon as they’re introduced, but this tones down considerably in the latter half of the book.

I would still recommend checking out this book so that you can judge the ending for yourself. Perhaps your perspective on it will be different than mine and you will see it in a more positive light. It is still an enthralling tale of romance, accomplishing your dreams, and the magic of ballet.

My verdict – 4 out of 5

How to Write Love at First Sight

04 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by Jessica Wood in Common Criticism, culture, fairy tale, fantasy, film, musings, romance, story, writing, writing advice

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fairy tale, fantasy, fiction, historical fiction, love at first sight, romance fiction, story, storytelling, writing, writing advice, writing fairy tales, writing fiction, writing tips

Can you guess how this is going to work out?

People seem to be in one of two camps when it comes to love at first sight. Either it’s the ultimate epitome of romance and true love or it’s a creepy, unhealthy fixation that will never work out. This is why the fairy tale image of love at first sight leading to an instant happy ever after is going through a deconstruction in recent years and most modern readers are turned off by it.

There is a reason why it emerged as a literary trope and even why it still appears in some stories today. First meetings are emphasised in fiction because they are important in real life as well. Our first meeting and first impressions of someone will determine what our future relationship with them will be like. As much as we’d like to think we’re completely objective, scientists do say that it takes as little of one tenth of a second to decide if we like someone upon first seeing their face.

From a historical standpoint, it’s easy to see why this used to be a more acceptable form of storytelling. People used to die sooner and were expected to marry young so they had to latch onto the first piece of marriage material they came across and not let go. Divorce was also frowned upon so they were expected to be happy with their chosen partner for their whole lives, or at least pretend to be.

As society has changed, the idea of love at first sight has changed with it. Just as we aren’t expected to settle down with someone we’ve just met, so we don’t expect fictional characters to either.

Even so, there are still people who believe in love at first sight and it apparently does happen to some people. Some of these relationships do work out but others end horribly. So can it ever be pulled off in fiction? I’ve found that there are some cases when it can:

When to write love at first sight.

Short time frame. This is why love at first sight is so often associated with Disney films. The writers only have an hour and a half to make you buy into a relationship and love at first sight saves them a lot of time on development. This is why it rarely if ever works in a novel or long running television series because there is plenty of time to develop a relationship naturally.

A legitimate reason. To use Disney as an example again, Frozen did a very good job of establishing why Anna would fall instantly in love with Prince Hans – she’s spent most of her life isolated from her sister and only has one day to find a husband to keep her company throughout the rest of her lonely days. Of course it doesn’t work out but her reasons for falling instantly in love still make a lot more sense than the classic Disney Princesses.

Magical power. Maybe a character can predict what their true love’s first words to them will be or they were star crossed lovers in a previous life and have been sub-consciously drawn to each other. There is some room for creativity here. Magical powers can be a satisfactory explanation but if done badly they can come across as lazy writing, obvious plot devices and an excuse to skip out on the development of the relationship. In the worst cases they can also be downright creepy. Remember how appalled everyone was by the ‘imprinting’ scene in Twilight?

It’s not supposed to work out. Maybe the reasons why people are against this trope are the very things you are going for. It could be a villain with an unhealthy fixation on someone or a clueless romantic with no idea how true love really works. Even Romeo and Juliet, the most famous and glorified example of love at first sight was actually supposed to be a warning against hasty marriages.

Lust at first sight. This is a legitimate excuse because it does happen and lust is different than love. A crush at first sight is also understandable. I think all of us can say we’ve gotten a crush on someone just by looking at them, even if we later found out that their personalities weren’t as great as their looks.

Historical fiction. As I said, people’s attitudes to love at first sight have changed so you might be able to explain it in a historical context. But keep in mind that aside from different attitudes, people in the past were still the same as us in every other way and their hasty marriages didn’t always lead to happily ever after.

So there are some instances when you can write a character falling in love at first sight, but these are just starting points to the development of a relationship. In stories, build up is everything so you have to make your readers believe why somebody is worth going through a whole book’s worth of trials for.

I mentioned in a previous article that love triangles only work if they are written well. This is perhaps even truer for love at first sight. It’s not that writers can’t use it but it needs to be handled in a precise way to work effectively. Sometimes it can be done successfully but it is very rare and attempts to do so more often fail. If your character does fall in love at first sight and you want the readers to support their relationship then at least spend time developing it and the characters properly and have the characters decide if they want to make the relationship work in the long term.