(seriously, I don't have a pithy summary for a review better that it's own title)

I had a total blast.

I love Heyer's harebrained MC's, and Sophy is an order of magnitude on any of hers I've read. I had so much fun with the way she's completely on top of all the chaos she sows around while working to set things as they should go, and I knew the ride I was setting myself to as soon as she appears, but even more when her friends start popping up and you realize they like her, respect her, will help her, but pray not to be the focus of her arrangements.

I also love all her side characters in all their glorious follies. I even enjoyed Eugenia, because she was such a perfect foil.

It's not that the end is in any way unexpected, but the getting there was hilarious and entertaining. I totally get why it's a favourite Heyer now. It's certainly elbowing up there in the podium.

It is odd, but for all this book made me cry, I laughed too, and it left me happy. It very much IS a feel good book.

For all the bleak things that the anecdotes in these letters tell you about, there is warmth and humanity underpinning them. Through bombings, gun enforced curfews, children sent away for years, captives and capturers starving alongside, and concentration camps, there are books, and there is friendship, and dignity, and courage.

I don't know that it is a perfect book, or even that the plot is that tight (what plot), but there is a bunch of lovely and strange, and even ridiculous, characters being good friends and sharing the good and the bad, all because of books and one absent woman. And that's good. It feels cathartic, and lovely. It's... restorative.

I quite enjoyed the experience and I'm glad I took the recommendation.

And hey, I got a new favorite poem, because of this first stanza quoted (and I don't usually even enjoy poetry much, but this one resonates)

IS it so small a thing
To have enjoy'd the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes;

This came to my attention from some feed or other, recced as an entertaining romance, and it hit right the spot. Since I'm a picky bitch when it comes to my romantic reads, to say this was a nice and serviceable way to kill a reading slump, and a fairly enjoyable one at that, is no small praise. I might not be claiming it as perfect or touting it's brilliance to all and sunder (because I'm a bitch), but I will certainly read more of the author.

This was cute!

Some over the top soap-opera bits, rosy romance (a couple of weeks a solid relationship does not make, but I'll take it on suspension of disbelief) and all, it was a nice romance and the fantasy flavor was pretty awesome (that gift makes me so envious! The possibilities!).

I confess I toyed with the idea that it would go further and more bravely into the possible dynamics, but it went the expected extremely straight road. It was not something I thought the author would have the balls to go with, but felt a bit like a missed opportunity. And the bit where the guy goes into a rage over having maybe fucked someone that once had been male was... I can hear protest over the times mores and law, and verisimilitude, from my shoulder devil and it still sits wrong (specially given that we have fairies, and magical gifts, duh). The part where the man was more upset about the loss of trust than anything else was really good though.

I was not expecting to find such a flawed, three-dimensional cast and a sad grim tone in a short, children's book. I don't know why, really, since I've come across both of those separately often enough in them (Dark Materials, Little Princess) paired with the big questions too. Specially given the fact that I've been a heavy reader since my tweens, and a firm believer in that Cabal's quote "when I want to write something that I think adults will have trouble understanding, I write children books" (I'm paraphrasing, I don't have that good a memory, and she likely borrowed too).

Here is the deal: this was way dramatic than I expected. And when I say dramatic, I mean angst, grief, homesickness, the loneliness of being an outsider. Really sad. Also maddening.

It is maddening because human nature is maddening. And because everyone, MC included, are flawed people with some good qualities and reasonable ideals and opinions and stances, and some appallingly wrong mixed in, so even with the best intentions they rub the wrong way and clash, misunderstand, work at cross-purpose. And there is always a little bitch witch shit ready to hate.

It was an interesting read even before the context of publishing-time kicks in (though I suspect there were some interesting witch-hunt related things coming out then... wasn't The Crucible a contemporary of McCarthyism too?)

At any rate, it was a really good book (totally deserves those awards), and it ended all sweet, happy and neat.

Hey! I keep missing my read for making another bingo. At this point, I'm not even pretending to curve my mood-reading. (There is also the bit where there is no magic here, but I'll let the title excuse my being misled)