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This book was excellent! I had read her first novel, The Dogs of Babel, and absolutely loved it, so I was looking forward to reading this one. This book was very different from her earlier book, but really enjoyable too. It reminded me of some of the things I like best about Lisa Carey, actually. This book was about a mother and daughter who have been keeping secrets. They go on a reality television "adventure" show (similar to The Amazing Race). The book shows their progress through the show from the perspective of several different characters. Really interesting for the mother/daughter story, and also a really fun look at the people on reality shows, what it's really like, what they might get out of it. Highly recommended.
I also failed to read a book this week: The Secret Life of Aphra Behn, by Janet Todd. I read Behn's book Oroonoko and really liked it, and I had heard excellent things about her from one of my favorite college professors, so I really wanted to check out this book. As it turns out, there's not a lot of documented history on Behn's life, so Todd had to reconstruct it from Behn's works (the vast majority of which I have not read) and also from overall Restoration history (which I'm not at all familiar with). Todd definitely assumes the reader has a level of familiarity with Behn's work, which is understandable, as well as a basic understanding of the period. And not having those things, I was just bored. Also, Todd has to speculate an awful lot, and I trust that she's making reasonable speculations but I don't *know*, not without a lot more background in the subject matter. I made it 60 pages. If I ever go for a PhD in English or history, or read my way through all of Behn's work, I will keep this book in mind to revisit.
I also failed to read a book this week: The Secret Life of Aphra Behn, by Janet Todd. I read Behn's book Oroonoko and really liked it, and I had heard excellent things about her from one of my favorite college professors, so I really wanted to check out this book. As it turns out, there's not a lot of documented history on Behn's life, so Todd had to reconstruct it from Behn's works (the vast majority of which I have not read) and also from overall Restoration history (which I'm not at all familiar with). Todd definitely assumes the reader has a level of familiarity with Behn's work, which is understandable, as well as a basic understanding of the period. And not having those things, I was just bored. Also, Todd has to speculate an awful lot, and I trust that she's making reasonable speculations but I don't *know*, not without a lot more background in the subject matter. I made it 60 pages. If I ever go for a PhD in English or history, or read my way through all of Behn's work, I will keep this book in mind to revisit.
