Book Blog #262: The Heir by Kiera Cass

Title: The Heir
Author: Kiera Cass
# of Pages: 342 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Romance, Fantasy
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Synopsis: Twenty years ago, America Singer entered the Selection and won Prince Maxon’s heart. Now the time has come for Princess Eadlyn to hold a Selection of her own. Eadlyn doesn’t expect her Selection to be anything like her parents’ fairy-tale love story. But as the competition begins, she may discover that finding her own happily ever after isn’t as impossible as she always thought.
Review: I'm giving this book 2 stars because it was worse than I was expecting.

I thought I knew what I was getting into. I've read the first three books in this series, so I already knew the basic premise of this story: the previous main character had an heir (Eadlyn), and now she is holding her own Selection. I was in the mood for a quick, shallow read about a girl in a Bachelorette-esque situation.

However, this book did not meet my expectations. Eadlyn turns out to be more headstrong than the synopsis implies. She is so resistant to the Selection, it takes all the fun out of the story. Would people want to watch The Bachelor/Bachelorette if person in the spotlight didn't want to participate? No. And the same goes for this story.

The main take away from this story is also not great. Eadlyn doesn't want to get married (yet). She is a (self-proclaimed) "strong" and "independent" woman, but the world seems to be telling her that she needs a husband.

Eadlyn thinks to herself, “Everyone keeps saying that: it might be good for me. What does that even mean? I’m smart and beautiful and strong. I don’t need to be rescued.” This statement is something that should be said to more often. Women don't need to be with someone else to be empowered. However, when this statement is presented in the book, it as if this is setting the tone for her initial mindset that she will eventually grow away from as her character develops over time. This is NOT the correct direction she should be moving toward. Although she should grow to be more open minded, framing it in a way that implies she NEEDS a partner is not the way to do it.

Eadlyn: “Why haven’t you married?”
Lady Brice: “I am married. To this job! It means a lot to me, and I’d rather do it well than seek out a spouse…The only people I ever get to see are the other advisers, and I don’t think I’d want to be in a relationship with any of them. So I’ll just keep working.”

Lady Brice might be one of the only characters who is okay with being a single woman, but it's only because she is married to her job and doesn't find potential suitors attractive. She also implies that she can't do her job well AND seek out a spouse at the same time....

Overall, not really worth the read. I was disappointed to find that this isn't even the last book in the series. I was hoping to finish it once and for all, but now I have to consider whether I will read the final book or not for the sake of completeness, or if it really isn't worth my time.

Book Blog #261: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Title: Middlesex
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
# of Pages: 529 (paperback)
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction.
Review: This book took me an abnormally long time to finish. It has almost been two months! I had to check this book out at two different libraries because I wasn't able to renew at the first one.

Usually, when books take me this long to read, it's because I don't like them. However, this is not the case for Middlesex. This book was recommended to me by someone who knew I enjoyed books like Pachinko and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Middlesex spans multiple generations and "peels the onion" of Cal's life as a hermaphrodite. It's an interesting story for sure, but for some reason I was having issues staying awake long enough to make significant progress per reading period.

Something that did bother me about this book was how much the narration skipped around the timeline. I enjoyed the story when it was told chronologically, but since Cal is the narrator, he would skip to present day occasionally to give the reader an update on what is going on in his current life. This is a stylist choice, but it is one I didn't enjoy.

If it didn't have the magical power of putting me to sleep after only reading a handful of pages, I would have given it 4 stars. However, usually books that take me a long time to read indicate that I am not hooked by the story, which is why I docked a star off the rating. However, if the synopsis sounds interesting to you, I would recommend reading it. Although I wish it didn't take me as long as it did to read it, I do not regret reading it in the slightest.