The Tea Rose

Goodreads blurb:
The Tea Rose is a towering old-fashioned story, imbued with a modern sensibility that is fresh, compelling, and perfectly pitched for these times. This sweeping epic follows young Fiona Finnegan's climb from the teeming streets of East London. Her dreams of leaving her home behind are shattered when her father, a dockworker and union organizer, is killed in an accident. Crushing poverty, the loss of her lifelong love, and the destruction of her family quickly follow. When Fiona discovers that her fathers death was no accident, but a murder engineered by a ruthless tea baron bent on destroying the union, she flees to New York to save her own life. There, the ghosts of her past propel her to the very top of the city's tea trade. A decade later, armed with tremendous wealth, she returns to London to reclaim her lost love and exact a breathtaking revenge.

I've been interested in reading a book by Jennifer Donnelly for a while, because I keep reading great reviews of her novels. I love a good epic historical fiction and this is a time period (and place) I'm fascinated by. I actually own another Jennifer Donnelly novel (Revolution), which I bought at a Borders going-out-of-business sale, but it ended up in my Christmas pile. I'm not feeling very patient right now, I decided to keep myself happy by checking this out from the library.

I think that, overall, I came away satisfied with this book. Barely. I'll talk about the negative first. Hello MELODRAMA! Good grief, but this novel was soap opera-y. All sorts of ups and downs and people sleeping around and people dying, but then coming back from the dead. Amnesia, changes of fortune, manipulative girls getting pregnant to trap boys into marriage...

Getting the picture?

It was just a bit much for me. And the romance-y bits were far too *ahem* detailed.

This is an adult book. I'm hoping that Revolution, being YA, will be less specific.

And it really was a shame because the things I was most looking forward to, the setting and the history, were so well done. The writing was beautiful and the characters fascinatingly complex. There was also quite a bit of mystery, with characters trying to solve the identity of Jack the Ripper, who is - in a word - terrifying. I stayed up too late several nights in a row, knowing I wouldn't be able to sleep until I figured out just a little bit more of the puzzle.

So, to sum up here, The Tea Rose is a beautiful book with lots of interesting elements, but it is rather on the melodramatic side with plenty of adult-level romance. Not quite my thing, but not the worst book I've ever read.

Clair Poulson

I've always been a Clair Poulson fan, but I haven't read any of his books in years. After my grandma passed away, I inherited all her Clair Poulson books. Probably because everyone else already has them. See, Clair Poulson lives in the same town my mom grew up in and they all know him personally. His wife taught my mom piano lessons for years. A lot of the books I have now are signed by him too. :D In case you've never heard of him, Clair Poulson writes LDS mystery/crime novels. So, I went back and read one I remembered liking then read his two most recent. I'll Find You is pretty old (2001!) - ok not that old, but it did feel old because the characters wrote letters and didn't have cell phones and the internet was referred to once as being a bit of a novelty. Times have changed, no? I really liked both Dead Wrong and Deadline. I can tell that Poulson has improved as a writer and the plots were all very tight. A little predictable here and there, but I am a very good predictor of books. It's cause I've read too many! I especially liked Dead Wrong because a very important part of the story occurs in Boise! I don't read much LDS fiction, but I think Clair Poulson does it well. And it's always fun to have settings in Utah/Idaho, places that I really know well. Anyway, so if you like a good crime novel now and again, try something by Clair Poulson.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I guess I was curious. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about and why so many people love this series. I went into it kind of nervous after reading a few reviews. I expected it to be a bit grittier than my usual read. I expected violence, murder, you know... stuff you find in a crime novel. I didn't expect it to be much worse than, say, a Dan Brown novel. I was anticipating intense.

I was wrong.

It was much, much, worse than I imagined. I don't think I could have imagined it, because usually such filthy things don't live in my imagination. This book was incredibly, vastly inappropriate. Every kind of vile thing that exists on this planet: in this book. So why didn't I stop 10 pages in when I realized how bad it was? Because I don't have very good self-control when it comes to reading books. I usually finish, even if I find them offensive. This is one of my main character flaws. The other problem I had was that I was so frustratingly invested in finding out what happened to the stupid missing heiress that I kept reading! Larsson kept giving me little clues that kept me hooked. Anyway, all I have to say is DON'T READ IT. I'm kind of glad I read it so I can warn all of you not to. This book is brutal, violent, sadistic, disturbing, I could go on and on. Just save yourself the trouble and don't bother. I will not be reading the other two books in the series.