In Which Trai Reviews 'The Magic of Ordinary Days'

Hey, everyone! Lo and behold, classes for me were canceled again today, so I had ample time to finish the book and watch the movie. Some spoilers might exist in this review of the book and movie.

The Book: The Magic of Ordinary Days

The Author: Ann Howard Creel

How I Found It: I read about the movie in an interview with Keri Russell and the story sounded interesting, so I decided to read the book and then see the movie.

The Review: And my fascination with the 1940s continues. There'll probably be a whole bunch more on the way. This one does deal with the war in a sort of oblique manner; it deals more with the homefront and things like the internment camps that were stateside, something I'd never known about.

Livvy Dunne has just arrived in rural Colorado from Denver to be married, by the order of her reverend father. Her father has pushed her into an arranged marriage with a man she has never met-- a farmer named Ray Singleton-- because Livvy has been abandoned by the soldier father of her unborn baby.

Livvy and Ray are married by a friend of Livvy's father, and Livvy is introduced to Ray's family, including his welcoming, maternal sister Martha. Ray is very kind to Livvy and eager to welcome her into his life, telling her just before their marriage that he can and will love the baby, even if it is another man's. Ray is lonely after his brother was killed in Pearl Harbor; Livvy is lonely after the death of her mother from cancer.

At first, Livvy finds it difficult to adjust to the dullness of farm life. Formerly an archaeology student on her way to a degree, she longs for university life. However, she finds some semblance of it in the friendship of two Japanese-American workers on Ray's farm, Lorelei and Rose. Formerly university students, Lorelei and Rose have been relocated to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans. Livvy finds solace in their friendship and begins to adjust to life with Ray, though she is somewhat unsettled that he loves her when she feels that he deserves better than her. Over time, Livvy learns to recognize how good a man Ray really is, though Rose and Lorelei might not be exactly who they seem.

This was a book slightly similar to Morning Glory, though the circumstances were different. There is the pregnant heroine, the arranged marriage, farm life, things like that. I really liked this book a whole lot. It was the first adult effort by a Young Adult author, and the author had a really good sense of pacing-- the chapters were short and always ended at the right place. It moved along pretty smoothly, and it really flowed.

The characters were also easy to relate to and pretty well defined. Livvy's conflicted feelings felt natural. Ray was a little bit of an enigma even in the end, but it was understandable since the book is in Livvy's first-person narration and the whole book is about her learning to trust him eventually. I would have liked to see a little more of their life after Livvy finally acknowledges how she feels about him-- what did Ray mean when he said he hadn't always been so kind? Things like that being left unresolved bugged me. Martha was sort of a stock character-- the "angel of the house" type-- but she was good to Livvy and that was nice to see.

Some things just seemed a little bit too convenient, though. When Livvy asks Ray what people will say when it becomes obvious that the baby has been born full term and that she was pregnant before the marriage, Ray responds the town won't say anything because the family is too well-established. Really? I think it would have been more interesting if they had said something. What would the attitudes have been like? Would the town have been accepting of an arranged marriage? What about the baby? I suppose I would have liked to have seen Creel do something with that rather than take the easy way out of the town not minding.

The movie is a rather difficult to find 2005 production by the Hallmark Hall of Fame. (I just happened to chance across it in a Hallmark store. Amazon and other places are gypping people by selling it at ridiculously high prices; you can find a regularly-priced DVD here on the Hallmark website.) It stars Keri Russell as Livvy (the poor girl is always pregnant in her movies), Skeet Ulrich as Ray, and Mare Winningham as Martha.

The movie kept pretty faithfully to the plot of the book, except for a few minor details being changed (Livvy only has one sister rather than two, and that sister visits Livvy in the movie, which doesn't happen in the book; Lorelei's name has been changed to Florence; Florence is the only one truly involved in the criminal plot towards the end). One thing that I sort of didn't like was that Livvy came off as sort of bitchy to Ray at points. When Ray tells her he doesn't socialize with the Japanese workers, Livvy sort of snips at him that Florence and Rose are educated and that she enjoyed their conversation. That seemed mean of her; Livvy was at least corteous to Ray in the book, and she kept her feelings of negativity to herself.

However, the movie really did a touching job of showing how much Ray would do for Livvy. The dinner scene at Martha's was particularly sweet, as Ray mentions that he read about Troy in front of his family, and Livvy knows that he did that to please her. I did miss some of the sweeter moments from the book-- Ray staying with Livvy after she has a nightmare; Livvy finding that Ray has marked their three-month anniversary on his calendar-- but scenes like that one made up for it. Ray still came off as the real sweetheart he was in the book.

I really, really enjoyed this story and the messages it has to offer. Some people are discontented with Livvy having to give up her professional ambitions in order to have a family life, but I think I disagree. She has found love and a family, which isn't something that archaeology could have offered her. I liked the theme of forgiveness, and the story reminded me of Unexpected Gifts in a way-- Livvy finds unconditional love in unexpected places, and blood does not have to make a family. Ray is one of those good men who can love a woman even if a child is not his own, and it really warmed my heart. Very highly recommended.

In Which Trai Gives An Update

Hey all!

Oh how I love the snow. :) Classes were canceled today, so I had some time to catch up on reading. I finished Shakespeare's King Lear, which I've been meaning to read for a while, and it was wonderful! I don't think I'll review it here; what can I say about Shakespeare that hasn't been said? Haha.

I'm also reading Ann Howard Creel's The Magic of Ordinary Days as part of the ongoing Forties Binge. It's really wonderful and I'm about halfway through; I've also got the movie with Keri Russell and Skeet Ulrich on hand. Hopefully I'll be able to do something about those over the weekend.

I've also got an exciting opportunity-- Quirk Classics offered a chance for bloggers to review in advance the newest Quirk Classic, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith. It's a prequel to PPZ and I'm excited to be among the first to get to read it! The review will be up on March 3rd, along with the chance to win a cool contest Quirk is running for the readers of all the blogs participating in the advance reviews. (I received the advance copy in an envelope clearly marked with "Tutor Girl Reads" and everything. Quite awesome. I took a picture, haha.)

They were also really nice and sent all us bloggers a sneak peek at the fourth Quirk Classic, Android Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters. That's the picture accompanying this entry.

To all of you dealing with the snow like I am, stay warm and stay plowed! :) I hope to be posting as much as I can in the next couple days.

- Trai

In Which Trai Reviews 'Morning Glory'

The Book: Morning Glory

The Author: LaVyrle Spencer (FYI, her name = ridiculously hard to spell and/or pronounce)

How I Found It: The very enthusiastic recommendations of the lovely ladies who pointed me towards pretty much all of the forties books I read/will read.

The Review: Oh, wow, talk about high expectations for this one! The people who directed me towards it in the first place told me it was lovely, and then a whole bunch of people in the comments section over at Smart Bitches mentioned it as the book that got them into romance. I went into the book wondering if it could possibly live up to all that hype, and I'm quite pleased to say it did.

The novel opens with a brief prologue taking place in 1917. Chloe See has come back to Whitney, Georgia to live with her parents after bearing an illegitimate child. Her father is a religious revival leader and her mother a very fervent churchgoer herself, and refuse to even look at her child. Taking their daughter and granddaughter home, they lock them in the house and refuse to let them out for fear of being shamed.

Years later, in 1941, a man named Will Parker has just recently started working at a sawmill. He is a loner and a drifter, not prone to making friends. Soon enough, he is fired from the sawmill due to the fact that he has a prison record and was recently paroled. The men take jabs at him and mention an ad placed by a local woman-- one about seeking a husband.

That woman is the illegitimate child of Chloe See. She is Eleanor Dinsmore, called Elly, a recent widow with two sons and a third child of her late husband's on the way. She has been ridiculed all her life by the townspeople and refuses to go beyond the confines of the farm. Will goes to answer Elly's ad and finds her living in poor conditions, her husband never having been much for keeping up the place, but agrees to stay around and help her with the farm, the main reason she needs a husband.

Will slowly proves himself to be dependable and reliable, and Elly comes to trust herself and her boys around him, even with his past criminal record. In time, they follow through with marriage. It slowly becomes clear to them that they love each other. Through the birth of a child, war, and a criminal trial, their love manages to sustain the unlikely pairing.

This book was pretty much everything I was looking for in a romance. Elly and Will were very well-developed characters and I certainly felt for both of them. I also really enjoyed the character of Miss Beasley, a spinster librarian who is very kind to Will and Elly and a real sweetheart. She's the type of character I picture Kathy Bates playing in a movie, for some reason.

The characters were nicely fleshed out, and I also enjoyed how well Spencer handled the family relationships. The gradual developing of Will's relationship with Donald Wade and Thomas, Elly's sons, was so sweet to read, and Elly was portrayed as a wonderful mother. I really liked seeing a positive depiction of a growing relationship between a stand-in parent and the children.

Spencer also did well blending a few different genres. There was the romance between Elly and Will. There was the domestic elements of their life on the farm and the little things Will does to improve it. There was the parts of the book that took place during the war, and Spencer's detailing of what Will experienced and what the country was going through. And then there was the sort of crime drama of the last fifty or sixty pages, as someone in the town is killed and Will is suspected of the crime. The story was well-put-together and flowed easily.

The book was more explicit than I was expecting, I will say that-- it was written in the eighties, so I suppose it doesn't have to be all that clean, but I was a little stunned at the amount of detail and phrasing Spencer put in. It wasn't a bad thing, though; it felt authentic and that was all that mattered.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book. The growing love between Elly and Will was a real pleasure to read and I just really loved how well it captured the quiet, little things in life, like Will's simple joy at finally having someone love him, or even something as small as getting to have a library card. I can really understand why people flock to this book to read and reread it, and I'd like to try more of Spencer's, in addition to getting myself a nice, sturdy copy for rereading! Really highly recommended to romance fans and fans of the forties.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Distant Summer'

The Book: The Distant Summer

The Author: Sarah Patterson

How I Found It: This was another recommendation I received of a forties-era romantic story.

The Review: "See what I mean? Find someone with a future, Kate, and forget me. I'm already dead."

Katherine Hamilton is a British girl living in the midst of World War II. Every night, the RAF boys go on missions, air raids, and aren't guaranteed to come back. Katherine is just sixteen and can't fully understand the horrors of the war and the sheer amount of death that these young men experience.

While looking for her father, the pastor, Kathie discovers someone playing the church organ. At first glance, he appears to be a young man, but when he turns to face her, his face is older than his years. His name is Johnny Stewart, and he is a rear gunner for the RAF-- a position that means he will almost certainly die before his third tour, in progress, is over.

Despite herself, Kathie finds herself liking Johnny, who nicknames her Kate and invites her to a dance. It is at this dance that Kathie becomes acquainted with some of Johnny's friends-- particularly Richie, a sweet, Creole American member of the RAF who has known Johnny for some time.

At some points in their growing relationship, Kathie is baffled by Johnny's behavior. Why is he so cavalier about life and death? How are the other members of the RAF so casual about something so horrible? Will Johnny ever stop his thrill-seeking and settle into normal life, or will his luck run out just as it has for many of the other boys?

As Kathie becomes increasingly frustrated with Johnny's attitude, it is Richie who gets her to realize the full extent of what Johnny has been through-- experiences that have scarred him for life. As the summer wears on and Kathie becomes involved on the homefront, her thoughts become increasingly consumed with the fear that one day, Johnny may not come back alive.

This book is from the 1970s and is a really short story-- my copy is only 159 pages and I read the entire thing today. That being said, the author is a bit of a mystery-- the only thing I've been able to glean is that her father is a famous British novelist named Jack Higgins, and that she wrote this book when she was 16. Apparently, there haven't been any others.

I liked the book a lot for what it was, but it wasn't without its faults. Even with those, though, it was a really nice story, if a very derivative one, and I was impressed with the sheer amount of research about flying and such that went into this book. For a book written by a sixteen-year-old, it's pretty impressive that she knew as many details as she did.

The book's story is simplistic, but it was fairly well done. The plot is a cookie-cutter, really-- right down to Kathie being oblivious that Richie has feelings for her until something brings it to her attention, and right down to the fact that in the end, someone does die. All of this was pretty straightforward and easy to figure out, but I enjoyed the ride. The book definitely made me misty-eyed twice-- I did care about the character that died. The story was nicely paced and well-written, so that and the attention to detail were definitely the strengths.

The weaknesses: The characters were a little flat, in my opinion. Beyond the fact that Johnny is very, very lucky and a bit of an early adrenaline junkie, and the fact that Kathie is in love with him, they didn't really have any other defining qualities besides that. Richie was the only one who seemed vibrant enough as a character. I'm wondering if Kathie's characterization was vague on purpose-- if it was one of those situations where Patterson wanted the reader to, in effect, be Kathie. If that was the case, I can sort of forgive it.

With Johnny, though, I would've liked to see him have more depth than he did. When I think about it, he reminds me of Jeremy Renner's character in The Hurt Locker, which I saw very recently. In the film, Renner keeps returning to war because, as the epigraph puts it, "war is a drug." This was definitely the type of character that Johnny was made out to be, and he came off just as Renner's character did in The Hurt Locker-- in the end, Kathie probably won't ever understand him fully, and nor do we truly understand Renner at the end of the film. This could be another possible explanation for why Johnny didn't have much depth; maybe he wasn't meant to, since Kathie doesn't understand him until very late in the game.

I don't think the complaints of Kathie being selfish were all that justified-- yes, she was thinking only of herself at some points, but she was only a teenager and I think that's to be expected. In her situation, I'd be dead terrified if someone I loved was going off every night to potentially meet his death. Recently, with my whole devotion to the wartime romance thing, I've been having a really hard time bringing myself to understand the heroes in these things. I'll probably go more into that when I get to review the film of Dear John, which is also where I'll talk more about The Hurt Locker.

Overall, the strengths of the book were the emotional depth and the very realistic feel to it. The whole story felt very contemporary, and in my head, I found myself relating it to more modern stories. One of the best parts of the book, in my opinion, was a section where Johnny, a comrade, and Kathie go to visit the wife of a fallen company member. The wife is fairly angered by their presence, telling them, "Can't you see your presence can only do one thing? Remind me that you are alive and he is dead?" She then wishes Kathie luck, seeing that Kathie is in love with Johnny. This exchange reminded me of another recent drama, The Messenger, which was about two soldiers tasked with next-of-kin notification. The scene in the book made me wonder how much harder those visits make it on the remaining family, and it was definitely a powerful exchange. I could actually picture this book as a movie-- it has a surprising amount of action, and with certain selective changes to old-hat portions of the story and a little beefing up of the characters, it would make a good period drama.

This book was a very good little story. While it still had a very contemporary feel and the emotions it elicited were very real, I felt as though it could have been somewhat longer, a little less reliant on old tropes, and had a little more characterization. All in all, however, it was almost exactly what I was looking for in a forties-era romance, and it was definitely an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. Recommended to fans of the era in fiction.

In Which Trai Reviews 'If Only in My Dreams'

The Book: If Only in My Dreams

The Author: Wendy Markham

How I Found It: I asked on a forum for recommendations of romances that take place in the forties. This was one of the books recommended to me, in addition to a couple more. So if a bunch of books I review in the next couple weeks turn out to be war stories, that's why!

The Review: I was actually really impressed by this book. I didn't cry like many reviews warned could happen, but I was touched by the story and it was a little heartwarming to see a perfect happy ending.

(One complaint, though-- the woman on the cover art looks a little old for 29. It bothered me. The cover art for the sequel looks like this has been fixed.)

Clara McCallum has just received the shock of her life-- at 29 years old, she has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and it is malignant. This isn't the greatest timing in the world, either, as Clara's big break is coming in the form of her newest acing role-- a biopic of some New York soldiers that perished during the Normandy landing. Clara plays the fictional bride of the dashing Jed Landry, their leader.

As Clara struggles to cope with her diagnosis, she arrives on set one day to shoot the scene where she meets Jed Landry at the train station. Only there's one problem-- the set's train takes her back to the actual 1940s, mere days before Pearl Harbor, where she meets the real Jed Landry... whom she knows will be dead in a few years.

Jed isn't sure what to make of Clara, who appears to him skittish and afraid. When she takes off and leaves some of her things behind, Jed is confounded by what he finds among her possessions, and when his search for her proves fruitless, he begins to wonder if Clara might be a spy.

Clara and Jed are attracted to each other after their brief meeting, but Clara has two problems-- she knows Jed is destined to die, and she also knows that her cancer is a death sentence in his time. Still, once she is back in the present, she finds herself wondering if it's possible she can save Jed or even the United States, changing what history has in store, or if it's possible that the present can hold love for her after what she's experienced with Jed.

This isn't quite science fiction-- Clara's time travel is never explained, not fully. She visits her old physics teacher, who explains that time travel would require more energy than the sun has, and Clara suspects the second time she time travels that she may have willed herself back, but that's about it. Just a warning for people who might want the legitimate time travel explanation; it's not quite here. But that's okay.

Anyway, I felt like this book was really well-put together. The connections between Clara's present and Jed's past were well done. Similarly, the forties details felt authentic (even if some of the slang would get a little annoying!). Reading Jed's sections did feel like he was a legitimate man from the forties; I could definitely believe the writing.

Some things were really cute-- such as Jed finding Clara's iPod, which he assumes must be a spy transmitter. It was funny to see how he reacted to the technology and how Clara attempted to explain. Clara and Jed's pairing felt natural-- it made sense for them to be a couple. Their attraction was nicely written and believable.

I don't quite know why I like wartime romances-- there's just something about the waiting and the uncertainty that strikes me as really emotional. Even if it's not something I can truly relate to, I can feel for the people it has happened and is still happening to. I liked that Markham did something different with this book-- instead of the woman being afraid the man would die at war, Clara knew Jed would die and still took the chance anyway, accepting it for however long it would last.

Overall, I really liked the book, and I might start looking into what else this particular imprint (Signet Eclipse, which publishes paranormal romance) has come out with. I've already bought the sequel to this book, The Best Gift, and I intend to read it soon. Highly recommended to fans of time travel fiction, paranormal romance, and the forties.