JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-Time Husband by Barbara Toner

It’s September 1919. The war is over, and everyone who was going to die from the flu has done so. But there’s a shortage of husbands and women in strife will flounder without a male to act on their behalf.

And in the southern NSW town of Prospect, four ladies bereft of men have problems that threaten to overwhelm them.

Beautiful Louisa Worthington, whose dashing husband died for King and Country, is being ruined by the debts he left behind. Young Maggie O’Connell, who lost her mother in childbirth and her father to a redhead, is raising her two wayward brothers and fighting for land she can’t prove is hers. Adelaide Nightingale has a husband, but he’s returned from the war in a rage and is refusing to tackle the thieving manager of their famous family store. Pearl McLeary, Adelaide’s new housekeeper, must find her missing fiancé before it’s too late and someone dies.

Thank God these desperate ladies have a solution- a part-time husband who will rescue them all. To find him, they’ll advertise. To afford him, they’ll share . . .

Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-Time Husband by Barbara Toner is a historical fiction novel set in the small country town of Prospect in 1919.

The war and the Spanish flu are over, but four women in town are struggling. They each face different dilemmas and they need help. Louise needs to clear the debt left behind by her deceased husband, Maggie needs help fighting for land, Adelaide’s family store is being pilfered by their manager, and Pearl’s fiancé is missing and she needs help tracking him down.

These troubles mount on the women each and every day, and they don’t have support from the town. They advertise for an external party — a part-time husband to help solve each of their problems. Enter Martin Duffy.

“Martin Duffy, so much more to Maggie’s taste than the Mayor, was having a very early lunch in the sunny corner of Mrs Quirk’s pub, writing his mother an amusing letter about the ladies’ hopes for him, which he had every intention of fulfilling.”

This is a novel about female friendship and identity. At a time where women were laughed at or cast aside, these women team up to take charge. They refuse to roll over and let others force them to give up what they want. These woman are confident, decisive and ballsy.

At first, they don’t like each other. They have preconceived notions about each other, and so there are a lot of arguments and disagreements over the course of the novel. But, over time, they bond and put aside their differences because they both want and need the same thing.

Four Respectable Ladies is charming and witty, filled with all sorts of characters. However, the novel fell flat for me. I think there were too many characters, contributing to an overly complicated and convoluted plot. At times, it was hard to follow the storyline, and we didn’t spend enough time with each of the four women to really warm to them.

At certain points in the novel, the women started to blur together. Additionally, Martin Duffy was quite an underwhelming character, not really dominating the book like I thought he would. Instead, I felt like he didn’t make enough of an impact in the town and he was quite disappointing.

I was initially drawn to this book because of its gorgeous cover. It captures the flirty, fun nature of some of the characters, whilst also making it clear that it’s historical fiction.

The setting has been captured well, highlighting that period in history where the war is over and yet life is not perfect. People are still recovering from the war, and they’re learning how to move on with their lives.

“Maggie smiled quietly to herself. Martin Duffy wasn’t a man who expected modesty, she was pretty sure of that. He was a man who liked a bit of spirit and she intended to show him that she had plenty.”

The biggest strength of this book was actually the secondary characters, not the four women. I particularly liked Florence Mayberry — the Mayor’s wife — who provides quite a bit of humour for the reader and whose relationship with her husband is entertaining to read.

Additionally, Barbara Toner has done a fantastic job of capturing dialogue. This book is really dialogue heavy, but Barbara illustrates all of the individual voices really well and so the conversations don’t get muddled. It was easy to follow who was speaking, even when there were multiple people in one scene.

I recommend this book to readers who love historical fiction, but know that this isn’t a typical historical fiction novel. Romance doesn’t drive the plot, and there are many many characters. It’s really a book about a town of people, not just four women and one part-time husband. This isn’t my favourite book, but I do think there is a market for this. Many readers will love the town of Prospect, and all the drama within it.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-Time Husband
Barbara Toner
February 2018
Penguin Random House Australia

The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski

As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions.

One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin.

But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.

I still don’t know what I think of this book. I heard so much about it on Twitter and read some great reviews – I haven’t yet read the sequel to this, so maybe I need to in order to understand all the hype. But for me, the story was good, but not oh-my-god-fantastic.

I didn’t understand the implied romance between Kestrel and Arin. I found their characters to be like cardboard cut outs – they were acting out the motions but I couldn’t sympathise for them or understand them, and therefore, I didn’t really care about them. I found myself finishing the novel because I was curious about the direction, but I wasn’t curious about the character development or the potential relationship development.

Despite these flaws, I did love the setting of this novel. The author has done a wonderful job of world-building and establishing an imaginative environment. Also, Kestrel is a strong and badass main character and quite refreshing for the YA genre. I’m interested enough in the storyline and the world and the plot to read the second in the series, but I do hope that the characters grow and develop.

My Score: 5/10
Buy at BOOKTOPIA or BOOKWORLD

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

What if you grew up to realise that your father had used your childhood as an experiment?

Rosemary doesn’t talk very much, and about certain things she’s silent. She had a sister, Fern, her whirlwind other half, who vanished from her life in circumstances she wishes she could forget. And it’s been ten years since she last saw her beloved older brother Lowell.

Now at college, Rosemary starts to see that she can’t go forward without going back, back to the time when, aged five, she was sent away from home to her grandparents and returned to find Fern gone.

I liked this book, but I didn’t love this book. I finished it, but I didn’t finish it eagerly. It was more a case of ‘well I’ll finish it because it’s not a long book and it was nominated for the Man Booker and I’m actually almost at the end’.

The plot was a little slow and dull and kept jumping back and forth between past and present so much that I often lost track of where I was up to. I didn’t care for the characters as much as I should. Rosemary seemed too distant from the reader and I couldn’t relate to her at all. She is weak and comes across as whiny. Although the author unveils so many issues surrounding animal cruelty and animal/human dynamic, the characters weren’t strong enough for me to enjoy the story.

On the front of the book, there’s a quote about how there’s an amazing ‘twist’ in this book. What you don’t realise is that this twist comes 1/3 of the way through the novel and not at the end of it. So the only part in the novel where you’re actually intrigued enough to keep reading is when that twist is revealed. But then after another 50 pages, you’re bored again with the plot and the rest of the novel is just slow and there’s not enough drive for the reader to want to keep going.

I don’t regret reading this novel because the plot is unique, but it didn’t engage me enough to reread it or recommend that others read it. Harsh, but true.

My Score: 5/10
Buy at BOOKWORLD or BOOKTOPIA

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London presiding over cases in family court. She is fiercely intelligent, well respected, and deeply immersed in the nuances of her particular field of law. Often the outcome of a case seems simple from the outside, the course of action to ensure a child’s welfare obvious. But the law requires more rigor than mere pragmatism, and Fiona is expert in considering the sensitivities of culture and religion when handing down her verdicts.

But Fiona’s professional success belies domestic strife. Her husband, Jack, asks her to consider an open marriage and, after an argument, moves out of their house. His departure leaves her adrift, wondering whether it was not love she had lost so much as a modern form of respectability; whether it was not contempt and ostracism she really fears. She decides to throw herself into her work, especially a complex case involving a seventeen-year-old boy whose parents will not permit a lifesaving blood transfusion because it conflicts with their beliefs as Jehovah’s Witnesses. But Jack doesn’t leave her thoughts, and the pressure to resolve the case—as well as her crumbling marriage—tests Fiona in ways that will keep readers thoroughly enthralled until the last stunning page.

I really wanted to like this short novel because it’s written by Ian McEwan, but truthfully, I found it slow and dry.

The main character seems a little devoid of emotion, and maybe that’s the point (her husband wants her blessing to have an affair). But when she meets a child whose parents refuse a life-saving because of their religious beliefs, she still seems to have the personality of a stone.

The story weaves between the apparent breakdown of her marriage and the court case, and the most interesting and engaging part of the entire novel is the during the court case when she has to decide and justify her decision about forcing the boy to have a blood transfusion. Apart from that, the story just seems to plod along with short dialogue and a bit too much description.

The good thing about this novel is that it’s only 200 pages, so it’s easy to finish quite quickly. I’d recommend this novel to literary readers and McEwan fans. As for everybody else, keep in mind that this novel is good and it’s well written, but it’s not a page-turner – I could easily put it down for three days and pick it up again and not have it concern me. This book exists for the literary prose and the moral themes it unearths, not for the thrilling plot or interesting and relatable characters.

My Score: 5/10
Buy at BOOKWORLD or BOOKTOPIA

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

A Court of Thorns and Roses was a letdown for me. I allowed all of the Twitter/blogger hype for this book to give me expectations that the book just couldn’t live up to. Truthfully, I think that fans of Sarah J. Maas are going to love whatever book she writes simply because her Throne of Glass series is so popular.

I hate to start with negatives, but there were three major things I hated about this book:
1.The premise is not believable
2.The ‘threat’ doesn’t exist until the end
3.The love interest doesn’t seem real and their connection doesn’t seem believable

Let me explain in detail. Feyre (main character) kills a wolf in the woods, but this wolf is actually a faerie. And when his friend, Tamlin, comes looking for revenge, instead of killing Feyrie, he invites her back to his house with him. She is fed amazing food and is cared for and she allowed to paint whatever she wants and they vow to keep her safe. AND her family is taken care of. What? Huh? She killed someone! That’s the worst punishment ever! And even though the reason Tamlin did this is explained later in the novel, it just doesn’t make any sense. Plus the explanation came a little too late in the novel, AND it was revealed via a servant girl’s monologue. Such a cheap way to reveal it!

Secondly, the only villain in the entire book doesn’t actually appear until the final 50 pages. So, the first 90% of the novel is so slow. It’s almost like the first 90% of the book functions as a love story, except this love story is ridiculous and unrealistic (will explain this in the next paragraph). The evil queen is a rich character who is actually a great villain, but she comes into the story way too late and at that point, you know she’s not going to win. And that entire section of the book where Feyrie has to pass three tests and figure out the queen’s riddle is fantastic. It’s a shame it didn’t start earlier on.

Lastly, Tamlin is a two dimensional character with no depth. I didn’t actually feel like I understood his character, and therefore I wasn’t cheering for him and Feyrie to get together. When she challenges the evil queen in order to save Tamlin, I was like meh. Who cares. Moving on. His role in the novel seemed generic, and he seemed too distant to be understood.

There were some redeeming qualities in this novel. Lucien is a way more interesting character than Tamlin – he’s witty and funny, and provides a different dynamic to the novel. Also, A Court of Thrones and Roses does open up a lot to be explored in the rest of the trilogy. I just hope the plot for books 2 and 3 is a little more fast-paced.

My Score: 5/10
Buy at BOOKTOPIA or BOOKWORLD

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