Review: Tough but Very Good Read
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 26, 2014
Read from February 24 to 26, 2014I haven't finished, yet, but this is one of those books that sometimes you have to put it down, and really think about what you read.This story takes place in the Victorian Age (after the Ripper murders) in Canada, then England. Much of what I have read deals with the political climate at the time, how women were thought of, and treated back then, and then it deals with Rachel.Rachel seems so much like an afterthought in the story until her marriage to the dashing, and mysterious Andrew. She listens, but remains in the background doing nothing more than sewing or knitting as a "good girl" should.The New Woman has come to world of the rich. She wants the vote. She wants to be equal to men. She wants to be educated. She wants equal rights, and she doesn't want to face the confinement, and the reality of a woman which is to bear children -- a time in which medical knowledge is slim, and a pregnancy is dangerous. Women are also... to be crude... overbred, and many sicken, and die simply because their bodies cannot remain pregnant all the time.Rachel gains real strength in her marriage. Andrew, as mysterious as his background is, finds himself facing a wife who demands honesty in their marriage -- this is the beginning of many lies coming unravelled, and the death of Andrew's first wife coming to the fore.I find myself cheering on Rachel on one hand, but then I want to smack her with the other due to the naivete, and mores she still struggles with. She wants an idyllic life of being a New Woman, of being married, a wife, then a mother at her choosing, and I can't help feeling that it will all come crashing down on her.Again, this story is tough to read because you're aren't simply reading to be entertained. This makes you THINK. This teaches you that women have long been thought less than men, and even today women are still facing the prejudice from family, and those in power in politics.I'll admit... I often don't want to think of such things. However, I can't fault the author for making me do so. I have invested time in Rachel, and the other characters, and there is only one way to find out what happens to them: keep reading. If the writer were not so skilled at her craft, I would have ditched the book days ago. However, the writing is very well, the editing is also good for this Kindle version of the book, and so I will finish.I just need to stop, and think sometimes. And so, hence this early review.FINISHED BOOK:This is an historic horror story of the oppression, and prejudices women have had to fight for literally centuries.The story begins in the latter half of the 18th century in Canada, and then moves to England. Rachel is the heroine whom I often wanted to slap for her thoughtless naivete, and hopelessly romantic dreams. By the end of the story, though, I grew to like, and then admire the woman.There is a mystery but that is layered over the growing emergence of the "New Woman", and the common man demanding his rights. We see both the idle rich, and the working poor living side-by-side. The rich feeling righteously sorry for the poor, but as is often said in the book, "what can we do?" And, nothing is really done.Rachel is from that rich, privileged class. She has several friends, though, that are young, intelligent women who are concerned about non-existent rights of women, and how barbarically, and ignorantly they are viewed. In addition, the laws are so shackled for women, that the atmosphere gives men the right to control, and even abuse women in order to make them behave as they should.Rachel seems primed to marry, to take care of a husband, and a house with servants, and to have children until her body is worn out. Reluctantly she attends meetings with her friends that discuss the problems women face, and what women want which is equality with men. Something we STILL do not have.In short, Rachel, a wide-eyed innocent whose voice is just waiting to awaken is ripe for the worst a woman might face. She falls in love with a seemingly perfect man who turns out not to be what she dreamed of.As her journey into married life takes her to London her eyes are reluctantly opened to the reality of life, and just how it has been perverted against her.The book IS a heavy read, and it does impart a great lot of history, and the political climate of the time. It is NOT a light read, and it does make you pull away every few chapters just to think upon what you've read, what Rachel is going through, and that those days were not as pristine as they appear in "romantic" books, and movies.The action does pick up towards the last few chapters, and there are a few scenes that are shocking, and even horrifying -- however, the reader like Rachel needs to witness these things in order to become the woman she eventually becomes: a woman with strength and intelligence that you admire.I've read on Goodreads a few complaints about "spelling errors" and "typos". The author is Canadian and uses spelling and grammar that is correct in Canada -- so I did not come across either spelling errors, and typos.