My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster A
I am not grading this book on the curve. I read this book in a day, and it has everything I value in a book; engaging characters, especially the narrator, along with clever and witty writing. Written nine years after When Patty Went to College, it is ten times more accomplished and engaging.
The narrator is an orphan, Jerusha "Judy" Abbot, who grew up in an orphanage and was then kept on after age 16 in order to attend high school, and work (for room and board) at the orphanage. She is offered the opportunity to attend college, with everything paid, including a monthly allowance, by one of the trustees of the orphanage. This trustee has done the same thing for several of the male orphans, and now wishes to it for her, since she is a promising student, especially in English and writing. His only requirement is that she write him a letter once a month describing her experiences, with the understanding that he won't write back. Everything will be handled by his secretary. She catches just be briefest glimpse of him, as he is leaving; only an impression of him being tall from the long shadows cast by a light outside. It gave her the impression of a daddy-long-legs spider, hence the name she gives him in her letters.
The book is mostly her letters to him over the course of four years, as she attends college, and spends her summers on a farm, reading like a diary. They, like her first book, describe life in a woman's college ca. 1910 or so. I need to have a "fried chicken and waffle supper" some time.
While I enjoy being emersed in this era, I loved her understated humor. But then, I'm a big fan of understatement in most everything. It's hard to pick out examples of this humor, But I'll give you a sample or two.
The first is from her first visit to New Your City, and shopping with a wealthy roommate. "And the shops? I never saw such lovely things as there are in the windows. It makes you want to devote your life to wearing clothes."
Or; "The weather of late has been ideal - bright sunshine and clouds interspersed with a few welcome snow-storms. I and my companions have enjoyed our walks to and from classes - particularly from."
Or on visiting the house of her rich roommate; "All the furniture was carved and upholstered and gorgeous; the people I met were beautifully dressed and low-voiced and well-bred, but it's the truth, Daddy, I never heard one word of real talk from the time we arrived until we left. I don't think an idea ever entered the front door."
In short a wonderful story. My only complaint is a minor one, I thought the ending could've been handled with a little less melodrama.
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