Hellos and Best Books of 2011

These past two months have been such a crazy mash-up of insanity, holidays, Yuletide, and Issues that I kind of started to hide from anything that wasn’t Absolutely Required because everything was stressing me out.  And then, of course, once that starts, it’s hard to stop hiding because there is Much Guilt.

But luckily there has been the start of the New Year and an acknowledged place for New Beginnings so I poke my head out again to say how much I missed all of you and how much I’ve missed this crazy book blogging thing we do.  So hi!  I doubt I will be posting as much as I had been last year, but I want to keep posting and keep up the conversation.  

To make this a real post, I just want to take a moment to look back at the best books I read in 2011.  I didn’t review them all, but I did review some, and I’ll link to those reviews in the list.

• A Brief History of Montmaray and FitzOsbornes in Exile by Michelle Cooper - My favourite books of the year.  The story of the royal family of a tiny (fictional) island in the Bay of Biscay in the late 1930s. Gorgeous history, fantastic characterization. I can not wait for the third book.  Can. Not. Wait.
• Entwinedby Heather Dixon - An amazing and magical retelling of the fairytale Twelve Dancing Princesses. The author managed to create distinguishable personalities for each of the twelve sisters which is a feat in itself.
• Deadline by Mira Grant - The sequel to Feed which came out in 2010. Somehow Grant avoided the 'second book of a trilogy' curse with a further exploration of the world, the virus causing zombies, and the wonderful characters she makes us fall in love with.

• All These Things I've Doneby Gabrielle Zevin - Not a dystopian, but a future New York where coffee and chocolate is banned because caffeine is a dangerous drug. A mafia princess (the 1st person narrator with a unique and interesting voice) tries to protect her siblings and find her own path after their father is murdered.
• The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson - Hilarious and terrifying on the same page.
• White Cat and Red Glove by Holly Black – Utterly brilliant writing and worldbuilding.
• Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper - A mourning emporium with a cameo from Charles Dickens.
• Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys - Heartbreaking and gorgeous.
• Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty – How did I last this long without reading them before? I have no idea, but I’m kind of glad I got to read them all in one big bite.

• Eon and Eona by Alison Goodman - Asian dragon lore and girls dressing as boys. An incredibly unique magic system and an epic fantasy.
• If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Forman - These are books you'll weep over. And they're amazing.
• Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins - Technically I read Anna at the very end of 2010, but I reread it about 6 times in 2011 so I'm counting it.

I don't know how real journalists do it! I always feel so badly when I'm choosing for 'best of' lists. All the poor books that I really liked but just didn't quite measure up!

Review: The FitzOsbornes in Exile by Michelle Cooper

The FitzOsbornes in Exile
by Michelle Cooper
August 2, 2010
Borrowed from Library
Amazon Page
Goodreads Page
Grade: A

Forced to leave their island kingdom, Sophie FitzOsborne and her eccentric family take shelter in England. Sophie's dreams of making her debut in shimmering ballgowns are finally coming true, but how can she enjoy her new life when they have all lost so much?

Aunt Charlotte is ruthless in her quest to see Sophie and Veronica married off by the end of the Season, Toby is as charming and lazy as ever, Henry is driving her governess to the brink of madness, and the battle of wills between Simon and Veronica continues. Can Sophie keep her family together, when everything seems to be falling apart?

An enticing glimpse into high society, the cut and thrust of politics as nations scramble to avert world war, and the hidden depths of a family in exile, struggling to find their place in the world.

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I loved this book.  Like “it needs to come live with me right now” love.  But I’m not entirely convinced that all the readers of A Brief History of Montmaray will feel the same way.  While A Brief History... is a short book with spurts of adventure and action, FitzOsbornes in Exile feels much more like an ‘adult’ book set in late-1930s high English society.  There are debutante balls, politics, references to the Mitford sisters and British Fascists and the League of Nations, and a great cameo by a young Jack Kennedy.

So I think you need to be at least a little interested in interwar Europe or high Society to really enjoy this book.  Or possibly just too much in love with the wonderful FitzOsborne siblings.  Otherwise it may seem overly long and boring in places.

With that out of the way, I’ll continue!  We still get Sophie as our narrator though this time her journal entries are often from a much greater distance that in the first book.  I kind of loved how much the book felt like a real journal with Sophie often opening the entries with “I meant to be writing in this more often, but...”  Or maybe that’s just my journals that always end up that.  She’s definitely grown up after the events of A Brief History..., and I loved seeing how she’d matured (and continued to mature). She’s no longer the sweet, slightly naive girl - well, she’s still sweet - but she understands politics much more deeply and comes to play an ever more important role in Montmaray politics (otherwise known as the disputes within her family).  Sophie’s the girl that no one notices because she’s shy and quiet but who observes absolutely everything and then uses it to her (sometimes) slightly Machiavellian advantage.

It’s really interesting to see England as a whole and London Society through the lens of a girl who’s only ever lived on an island and barely known more than 15 people in her entire life.  Sophie, her cousin Veronica (my second favourite character in the books), and her little sister Henry all have to adapt to the expectations of girls - and Princesses! - by the upper class.  For all of them, the adaptation is difficult, but perhaps especially so for the incredibly intelligent and outspoken Veronica who can’t bear to play the sweet, silent debutante.  Her arguments about politics during dinners and parties are some of my favourite parts of the book.  As is Henry’s expedition to have tea with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret at Buckingham Palace.

I didn’t mention it in my previous review, but I also liked the not-just-friends relationship between Toby (the new King of Montmaray and Sophie’s elder brother) and Simon (the ‘Lord Chancellor’ of their country).  The reactions of the older girls to the discovery of this relationship is perhaps a little too blase for the times, but watching both Toby and Simon try to decide if their connection is worth maintaining in the face of a society that wholeheartedly disapproves of it - not to mention the fact that Toby needs to produce an heir - was both interesting and a little heartbreaking. 

The climax of the book is just before World War II breaks out and occurs at a League of Nations meeting (seriously.  My little international relations-loving heart was a-flutter) which was again, very different from the first book and perhaps exemplifies the completely different tack this book takes.  The reader gets to watch Veronica come into her own, and it took everything I had not to stand up and cheer.  Well, also I don’t want people to think I’m entirely insane.

I’m thrilled to find out there’ll be a third book featuring the FitzOsbornes, and I look forward to reading it as soon as it comes out.  Like I said at the beginning, this book won’t be for everyone, but if you’re at all interested, I’d completely recommend it. 

Review: A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper

A Brief History of Montmaray
by Michelle Cooper
October 13, 2009
Borrowed from Library
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: A

Synopsis:  “There’s a fine line between gossip and history, when one is talking about kings.”

Sophie FitzOsborne lives in a crumbling castle in the tiny island kingdom of Montmaray with her eccentric and impoverished royal family. When she receives a journal for her sixteenth birthday, Sophie decides to chronicle day-to-day life on the island. But this is 1936, and the news that trickles in from the mainland reveals a world on the brink of war. The politics of Europe seem far away from their remote island—until two German officers land a boat on Montmaray. And then suddenly politics become very personal indeed.

A Brief History of Montmaray is a heart-stopping tale of loyalty, love, and loss, and of fighting to hold on to home when the world is exploding all around you.

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This book certainly owes a great debt to Dodie Smith’s classic I Capture the Castle, but if a reader stops there and assumes it’s simply a poor imitation of that book, she’ll be missing out on a fantastic historical read.  Cooper seems very aware of the classic, and I can only assume that naming the protagonist’s potential love interest ‘Simon’ is both homage and acknowledgement.

The setting of A Brief History... is a character in itself – a windswept and rocky island just south of the English Channel.  Montmaray has been ruled by the FitzOsbournes for hundreds of years, but now the castle is falling down, the furnishings have been sold off, and only the mad king, his teenage daughter, his two nieces and a very small handful of villagers remain in residence.  We’re told that the majority of the Montmaray men were killed on a single day during World War I, and the families that remained moved to England for more opportunities.  The very isolation of the island is both a benefit – neither France nor England nor Spain ever felt the need to try to conquer the tiny country – and a huge problem as the royal family and villagers alike wait for passing ships for their mail, foodstuffs, and even doctors when necessary.

Our narrator is Sophie, the sixteen year old niece of King John who might be slightly mad.  Her older brother Toby is the heir to the Kingdom since their cousin Veronica is excluded from succession due to Salic Law.  I really enjoyed Sophie’s narrative, and I particularly enjoyed the journal format – instead of the more immediate first person narration typical of so many YA books, we get her perspective from slightly greater distance.   Sometimes journal books read simply like a past tense first person narrative, but it’s obvious that Sophie is considering both what she writes and how events relate to the past and present on Montmaray.

I especially love the character development that occurs as Sophie matures through the course of the book.  She starts as rather young for her age but develops quickly as concerns about her family and home along with a potential war take the place of worries about boys (even knowing just one boy not related to her, the worries abound) and her place as the boring one in the family.

All of our views of the other characters then are obviously through Sophie’s lens, and while she’s unflinching when she perceives a flaw, the love and admiration she has for Veronica, her brother, and even her little sister Henry is clear in every interaction.  Each of the teenage characters comes to life fully realized (therefore avoiding another flaw I often find in journal books).  The adult characters are less nuanced, but even that makes sense from the teenage perspective especially in a world where a responsible adult’s presence is very much lacking.

The plot starts slowly as Sophie discusses daily events, her family relationships, her rather guilty desire to go to London and do a Season in society, and money troubles.  Being a Princess on Montmaray doesn’t mean much in the way of comforts.  The ceiling leaks, drafts abound, and none of them have proper clothes.  We get a good deal of Montmaray history – mostly in amusing anecdotes or when discussing Veronica’s obsession with writing a history of their kingdom.  Once the story picks up though, it seriously picks up and soon there are German operatives exploring the island, bombers overhead, and a suspected relationship between Sophie’s brother Toby and her crush (who may or may not be the son of the King).

I can’t wait to read the sequel to A Brief History… (which I’m avoiding naming because the title is definitely a spoiler for events in the first book), and I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in a look at a tiny (and cold!  I kept needing to put on a sweater as I read) island kingdom as the second World War approaches.  Or, conversely, anyone interested in a coming of age story (and aren’t we all if we read YA) set within a family and political drama.