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3 years ago 7,606 notes Source Source

Book Review: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

The year is 1982 and Madeleine is about to graduate from Brown University with a degree in English Literature. Unfortunately, she’s just broken up with her boyfriend Leonard, and seems to be without a place to live once she leaves Brown. Graduation day is a crossroads for most seniors, and with the recession in full swing things are more difficult than usual. Her friend, Mitchell, is going to attempt to wait out the recession by going to Europe and then India. A Religion major, Mitchell is in love with Madeleine and believes that they will end up together. Madeleine wrote her thesis on the marriage plot in Eliot and Austen’s novels, in which the heroine has to choose between two suitors. Although the marriage plot is dead, the similarities between Madeleine’s life after college and the marriage plot are still clear. With divorce and the many changes in relationships in the last few hundred years, can there still be true romance?

I recently read The Virgin Suicides and liked the writing enough to be interested in Jeffrey Eugenides newest book, The Marriage Plot. In a way, this book is relevant to my life at present since I just graduated from university (although no one would call my life a marriage plot.) This book ended up being less like The Virgin Suicides and more like The Art of Fielding. The story follows three college graduates, Madeline, Mitchell and Leonard, who majored in English, Religion and Science, respectively. Just twenty-two, they try to figure out how they want their lives to turn out and who they want to be. Mitchell is delving into religion, while Madeleine is devoted to Leonard, who was recently hospitalized for Manic Depression. In my review for The Virgin Suicides, I mentioned how the reader knows so little about all the characters. While I still feel the same, in a way we get to see more of the what’s at the heart of the joint male narrators than we do from Madeleine in The Marriage Plot. I suppose you could say she was a superficial character, although we do know a lot about her. I never really saw the complexity that Mitchell claims to see. The character I related to most was Mitchell, who repeats Salinger’s Franny’s prayer to himself as a mantra. After graduation, Mitchell and his roommate leave the US for Europe, and travel for months before heading to India. I found Mitchell’s self-discovery as he travelled the most interesting. While Eugenides wrote well from the perspective of Leonard, I felt like his one section dragged on. I was never charmed by Leonard, as Madeleine is, so perhaps that’s why I didn’t enjoy the chapter from his point of view. The premise, centring around the marriage plot, was interesting and I was happy with how it was carried out. The plot was a bit slow moving, especially during flashbacks. I had heard that the ending was a big disappointment, and I spent the whole time dreading what would happen when I got to the final pages. I was surprised to find that I liked the ending and how it related to the themes of the book. The Marriage Plot is thoughtful without being difficult or too pretentious. While it was different from The Virgin Suicides in many ways, both books share Eugenides’ artful prose.

3.5/5

“In Madeleine’s face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and the beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.”

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6 years ago 12 notes

Book Review: The Selection by Kiera Cass

When Prince Maxon is ready to find a wife, the country of Illea allows all girls between the ages of 16 and 20 to put their names forward to be selected. One girl from each of the 35 provinces will be chosen to live in the palace and vie for the prince’s affections, allowing him to eventually select his wife with all the world watching. Illea is part of a caste system, and America Singer belongs to the 5th caste, for artists. While she could be worst off, America’s family is often hungry. Being selected means never having to starve, even if you aren’t chosen to be Princess. While entering the competition means half of her worries would be gone, America is in love with Aspen, a servant of the 6th caste. When he insists that she enter, she can’t imagine being randomly chosen; what are the odds? But the selection process proves to be less random than she thought, and America is whisked away to the palace to compete for the affections of the stiff looking Prince Maxon. America wants nothing more than to stay in the competition just long enough to keep her family comfortable, but she soon sparks a friendship with the prince, who she initially misjudged. Just as America might be starting to feel something real for Maxon, Aspen comes back into the picture, bringing with him all of America’s old feelings. While Maxon still has to make his selection, with his feelings and the good of his country playing a role, America has a selection of her own to make.

You can’t say the cover for The Selection isn’t beautiful! I wasn’t going to read this book until my friend and I were trying to decide whether it would be good or not, since we couldn’t help but scoff a little at the name America Singer. I decided to read it and find out for the both of us. This book will appeal more to fans of romance than fans of dystopia. I’ve heard it described as ‘fluff,’ which is fair. This book is sort of The Bachelor with a dystopian backdrop. Not to say that it is exactly like The Bachelor; while the girls to interviews, cameras do not follow them everywhere. However, comparisons between the two are inevitable.

To me, this book was really just entertaining. There wasn’t a lot of depth and the world building was very flawed, since a lot of history was piled in a history lesson midway through the novel. We don’t know a lot about America’s world. Dystopian literature really should be thought provoking and make you examine the world you read about and the world you live in, which The Selection didn’t do. At the heart of the novel, this is a romance, with a love triangle to boot. America enters the selection thinking things are over with Aspen, but doesn’t believe she could love Maxon. For this reason she is different from all the other girls, being honest and even mean to the Prince. This, of course, wins his affection, but soon Aspen reappears. The whole thing was a bit predictable, but it was fun. There were a lot of cheesy moments, especially with Maxon’s dialogue. At the same time, The Selection was entertaining and enjoyable. If you’re the kind of person who likes books with love triangles and good looking characters, then you’ll find in The Selectiona book that will make you swoon.

3/5

“True love is usually the most inconvenient kind.”

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6 years ago 14 notes

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