The Observations

I finished this book on the weekend, and I have to admit, it lived up to it's hype. Apparently the first 100 pages of this manuscript started some sort of giant bidding war between various publishing houses and caused both a big stir in the publishing world and garnered the author a huge chunk of money.

Anyway, this was a really fun read about a young girl who escaped a life of child prostitution to end up working in a manor house in Scotland in the mid-1800's. Now, as is evidenced already by my 2009 book selections, I love a good mystery, and I love it more when it comes with people in corsets and top hats. This might make me an easy target for "The Observations", and that would probably be true.

Probably what makes this book stand out among about 1000 others in the genre is the writing of the narrator, a young girl named Bessy (or Daisy) who has both a quick and caustic wit. Were it not for her, this would have been your average period piece, interesting but not particularly engaging. With Bessy, however, I found myself in that interesting and rare instance when you are coming to the end of the book and you try to slow down, as you know you are going to miss the character when it is done.

For me, the mystery that drives the plot forward was almost secondary to just wandering around with the interesting characters, although it was engaging and curious enough to keep your attention. Overall, I give the Observations a solid 4 poo pellets out of 5 (and I have downgraded "The Whiskey Rebels to a pleasantly mediocre 3 tricornered hats out of 5 - I am being much to liberal with my arbitrary ratings).

Up next is some schlocky detective murder mystery that I picked up for $5 at London Drugs. After that I shall try to read something a little more valuable (although we shall see, we shall see...).

Also, I just found out today that there is going to be a fifth book by Megan McCafferty. I am squeeing with delight!