**** - I related to Mattie's love of words and stories as well as to her conflicting needs and desires. I thought this was a great complex story of dreams hidden, sought, and denied. A very relatable coming-of-age story.
At 16, Mattie Gokey is struggling to provide for her family after her mother's death. She also tries to indulge her love of words and stories. But Mattie is deeply conflicted between the needs of her family, her attraction to a local boy, and her desire to go away to college to study writing which no one at home seems to understand. To earn extra money, Mattie ends up working at the Glenmore hotel - and becomes the custodian of a set of secret letters that could reveal the identity of a murderer.
There was a lot about this book that I found very relatable and compelling - Mattie deep love of words, of sorting through them for just the right meaning; her worry that her friends are getting in over their heads (both Weaver and Minnie for different reasons), her conflict between doing what is best for her and doing what is best for her family. There's a lot of emotion hidden beneath the surface of this novel - and all of it is intense and raw coming-of-age. It's not always clear that Mattie will make the 'right' decision or even what the 'right' decision for Mattie is, and that adds immensely to the novel.
I found the back and forth, out-of-sequence narration intriguing rather than confusing especially since it allowed the author to weave in Grace Brown's storyline. I knew very little about Grace Brown's murder before reading this book, and I'm glad to have learned more about the tragic story. But considering how powerful an effect Grace Brown's letters had on both Mattie and on the author (as stated in her author's note), I didn't feel like I got the full effect of them. This may be a story or a space constraint, but I really wanted to get to know Grace more than I did.
But, at heart, this is Mattie's story - and Grace is more incidental, important for the effect that she has on Mattie. And really, Mattie is utterly fascinating. She's selfish enough to want to pursue her own dreams rather than settle down as a martyr figure, but she also has half a mind to stop fighting and take the 'easy' path that is expected of her. I loved watching her adapt to life at the hotel (much more fun) and seeing her struggle with her life at home (in a considerably less idyllic version of Little House). My main quibble would be (MINOR SPOILER= that I wish that Royal hadn't been just using her. If he had shown honest interest in her, it would have made her decision much harder, but also more realistic. /end spoiler).
A great period read and a great coming-of-age novel.
ETA: While I was running around commenting on others' reviews, I found myself telling a little story. Thought you might like to know, too! There's a section in A Northern Light where Mattie finally works up the courage to show her writing to her teacher. But her teacher tells her that the type of stories she writes are too depressing for a girl to write - that she should write about pretty things. And that really brought to mind a situation with my own creative writing professor in college.
I had finally worked up the guts to join a creative writing workshop (after a devastating experience in high school with a teacher who insisted on seeing my writing and then told me I used too many adverbs - I may be a bit thin-skinned). When we turned in our first assignment, for me the opening scene of a romance novel I was dying to write, the professor gave it back to me telling me that I couldn't write that in her class because it lacked substance. And 'fairy-tale romance' was NOT literary. Total sucker punch, and one I've been struggling to overcome ever since. I guess this is just a side note, but I really related to how difficult it can be to have faith in your writing, to take such a big step as going to college for it, when someone (anyone) has attacked not the style, but the voice of your writing like that.
Find out more about the crime at the TruTv Crime Library
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7 comments:
Glad to hear you enjoyed it! I just picked it up recently. ;)
Amy, I really hope you like it! If you review, please leave me a link, so I can add it above. I enjoy your reviews.
Thanks for the link love :)
I have it, but haven't read it. The cover art isn't appealing to me. And I think you and I both are firm believers in a good cover...
Katy - SO true. I have an unwarranted prejudice against anything with a cartoon cover, for example. I don't know what I'm going to do since that appears to be the prevailing trend for UK romances :(.
Thanks for your comment! I'm also glad that you liked the book! It's one of those books where I want to tell every single person I meet about!
Also thanks for linking to my review, I think that's really awesome of you to do to link directly to other peoples reviews so someone reading can get different opinions! Very nice!
Anna - I'm glad you like the links! I prefer to read a couple of different reviews to get an idea for a book, and this way I get to find all kinds of new blogs, too!
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