Wednesday Reading Meme

What Have You Just Finished Reading:

Elizabeth Hoyt's "The Leopard Prince" (No leopards or princes were involved in her main story.)   As per Hoyt's habit, an attached fairytale  acts as meta commentary on her non-fairytale novel  -- though this time it isn't a separate text but a story the heroine relates in pieces and parts over the course of the novel. This fairytale is of "The Leopard Prince," a heroic prisoner freed from enslavement to exploitative kings and is included as commentary on the main (non-fairytale) plot. (Side note: it continually surprises me how many people on Good Reads do not grasp that Hoyt's attached fairytales always act as commentary on her non-fairytale plots).

I tend to think that the last bit of cross-purposes in the final chapters of the novel weren't as well supported as they should've been, making them come off a bit manipulative and OTT (but relatively brief, so I shrug it off). It felt like there needed to be a bigger impetus to force such rash action. However, overall, I was charmed and liked the book.

One thing I generally like about this author is her tendency to add subplots and secondary characters.  The central mystery is simplistic and pedestrian (someone killing sheep of all things, though this escalates to a murder later in the novel.  And ultimately there are 4 {human} deaths in the novel), but I rather liked the subplot of the hero and his brother reconnecting. And the inclusion of  the subplot with the heroine's much younger sister is clearly used as comparison for contrast with the main romantic relationship with the hero and heroine.(a lantern is hung on this by both the hero and the heroine's brothers who recognize both the similarities and, more significantly, the differences in the two sisters' situations. The older sister is almost 30 and consciously chooses to embark on a relationship with her land steward. Her baby sister is 14 and seduced by a fortune hunter. In that time period, those things are considered to be much alike, but the characters recognize the there is a significant difference between a 30 year old woman choosing a relationship with a man her own age (if not her own social station) and a 14 year old girl being manipulated by a 26 year old man.


In the end, I think the biggest flaw in the novel is too little expansion on the main villain. I'm still confused by his obsession with the hero (further confusing that motivation is the hero's tortured hallucination which mixed with his memories of the heroine's fairytale, implying that... well... huh. There's love involved...? Was that what I was supposed to take from the ogre and the tin stag? Or was it just obsession coupled with the hero being insensate and near death?)At any rate, the villain may or may not be the hero's biological father (the hero's mother had been the villain's married mistress and there were no DNA tests at that time, so there's no way to know for sure).

I could've done with a bit more exploration of the villain's head space because I find it curious that the villain loathed his legitimate son (Thomas), loathed the {paternity inconclusive} hero (Harry), yet was covetous of the hero's younger brother (Bennet) {who shares a mother with the hero and... I'm unclear why Bennet's paternity would've been any more conclusive than Harry's, other than the villain acknowleging him, as it was the exact same situation all over again}) while on the other hand the villain was utterly dismissive of the existence of his youngest illegitimate child (Will) by yet another woman.

{The villain is sexually loathesome, BTW. }Clearly class issues were involved, but given the villain's loathing of his legitimate (blue-blooded) son, it wasn't just class.   I would've liked to parse out the whys of the villain's head space a bit more.

Anyway, flaws aside, I enjoyed the book.

What Are You Reading Now:
Between Books

What Are You Reading Next:
Am considering Hoyt's "The Serpant Prince" "The Raven Prince" .  Though I may backtrack to one of the unread Milan novels.


ETA: And suddenly I can edit posts again!  Whoopee!!!  That was a really irritating LJ glitch.

Huh...

Never heard of this theory of depression before.

Excerpt:

Dr. Gupta:
Dr. Craddock is looking at the brains of depressed people and of non-depressed people and comparing them. And he is seeing a difference.

Dr. Craddock:
I’m testing a hypothesis about depression that’s related to a network, a brain network that we all have. That network has been called the default network. The default network is more active when somebody is not performing a task than when they are performing a task.

Dr. Gupta:
In other words, the default network is the brain on idle. It’s on when we’re not asking our brains to concentrate on anything in particular. It turns off when we need to solve a problem or do any mental activity. Dr. Craddock’s theory is that depressed people have trouble turning that network off, maybe because their brains won’t let go of something that’s bothering them.

Dr. Craddock:
The thing with depression is these are people that just can’t stop thinking about it. They have a lot of trouble turning that off.