European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

Well... it's better than the first book. I think I gave it two stars because I actually managed to finish it. So this gets three. Don't think I liked it, though :-D

I am bothered by the timeline. I don't think it would have taken two weeks to travel from Paris to Wien, even in the 19th century. I'm also not quite sure when these events are supposed to be happening. I think it's supposed to happen in the last decade of the 19th century, but I'm not sure.

I think Diana is unusually childish and selfish. She behaves like 10 years old, not like the 14 years old she's supposed to be.

Mary is awful. She gets praised by everyone even though she never does anything. And even though Diana is awful as well, she is supposed to be awful, and everyone is bitchy to her. Mary on the other hand is supposed to be this angel, and she most of the time is being horrible to Diana. Frankly, I can't remember her doing anything in this book. She planned the trip to Wien, but it didn't happen, because Sherlock Holmes jumped in, and took care of it all. He even placed her with Irene Adler, who just handily happened to live in Wien. Then when they get kidnapped, Mina Harker just happens to handily live in Budapest, and just handily happens to send someone to rescue them. They manage to rescue whatever the girl's name was from the asylum - or Diana managed to do that - but somehow Mary gets the credit for it. What did she do? Nothing at all.
This is one of the reasons why I hate marysues so much. The author has to tell us what a wonderful, amazing, intelligent, resourceful, lovely person the marysue is, BECAUSE SHE NEVER DOES OR SAYS ANYTHING TO SHOW US THAT SHE IS.
(The other reason is that everyone, at least every good person, immediately falls in love with her. This, too, happens here.)

Then the research thing. If you want to write fan fiction, respect the canon.
1) Irene Adler was a contralto, not a soprano.
2) Sherlock Holmes had grey eyes.
3) Vlad Dracula's name was short of Vladislaus, not Vladimir.
(4) Hobbits stole mushrooms when they were children, they didn't steal carrots when they were adults. This one isn't to Theodora Goss, it's to the idiots who made the LOTR movies.)

YES, THESE THINGS ARE IMPORTANT.

And that actually made me reconsider and take away one star.

Gelezen als audioboek

Eerst en vooral wil ik toch wel even de audioboek voorlezer prijzen. Niet alleen heeft elk personage zijn of haar eigen unieke stem, maar worden vaak ook andere talen duidelijk en (voor die talen die ik ken) juist uitgesproken. Amai!

Dit tweede boek in de Athena Club-serie heeft alles wat het eerste boek had en meer. Het concept blijft een fantastische ingeving en ik ben dol op de manier waarop de oude bekende verhalen op een nieuwe manier werden verteld.
Ik was ook nieuwsgierig naar de inspiratie voor een paar nieuwe personages en ontdekte zo nog een aantal nieuwe Gothic klassiekers (o.a. Carmilla van J. Sheridan Le Fanu, She van H. Rider Haggard).

Dit boek was misschien iets te langdradig en repetitief, wat me waarschijnlijk meer zou hebben gestoord als ik het boek gewoon had gelezen. Maar dankzij het uitstekende luisterboek bleef het verhaal mooi stromen, ondanks de soms overdreven details.

Afgezien van een paar minpuntjes blijf ik dit een briljante serie vinden, met een fantastisch, rijk tweede deel. Ik ben super benieuwd naar het derde boek, vooral met dat einde!

2.5

Should have just left the first book a standalone sadly! This book is very long and there is no real excitement, tension or stakes. The climaxes are done in a page or two with little fuss or fanfare. They are also never wrong-footed, they never fail. You need failures to keep some suspense. It has great characters from all sorts of gothic books that are interesting but the plots are sorely lacking!

3.5 stars

This second book in the series sees, as its title indicates, our heroes travelling through 1890s Europe in another effort to foil the work of mad scientists. Although the explanations for what's going on are couched in scientific terms (that is, nobody claims they are magic) the result does, to me, feel more like fantasy than science fiction - although one could legitimately describe it as either. That's perhaps particularly the case this time around because the primary book that's being referenced here is Dracula.

While clearly referenced in the previous book, here the outcome of the events of that novel are closer to centre-stage, with the plot revolving around an attempt to rescue Van Helsing's daughter and then deal with the repercussions. In order to do this, the book makes some significant changes to the original novel, arguably more so than its predecessor did with Frankenstein. But none of these changes seem especially problematic, at least within the context of this series, where part of the conceit is that various gothic novels reflect a distorted view of real events.

Speaking of which, three new novels are thrown into the mix here. Carmilla is perhaps the most notable, especially given the theme of vampires, and gives another opportunity to see a tough female character fighting alongside the main protagonists (and having a romantic relationship that has to remain hidden but that the narrator is entirely accepting of). And that, of course, is a large part of the point - feminist women with unusual powers kicking ass in Victorian society, despite the fact that it often looks down on them.

The book retains the sense of fun from the original, glossing over any gore and certainly not being horror. There's a lot of scenic detail about travel through Victorian Europe, especially in the scenes in Budapest (the author was born in Hungary) and a veritably huge cast of characters. At times, it's a leisurely road trip, although the action can be fast-moving when we get around to it. The interruptions to the narrator often help to break the tension if things seem too bleak but if you didn't like them in the first book, you won't find this an improvement, especially given the running gag with the narrator trying to persuade the reader to obtain it when they have surely already done so.

Sofrido.

Novamente, aquelas 2 - 2,5 ★ estrelinhas choradas.
Mesmo começando com uma frase assim:

For all the girl monsters.
May they conquer the world.

Excerpt from: “European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman” by Theodora Goss. Scribd.

Léo Vincey que não teve uma única vez que não ouvi como Leo (Da)Vince, e quase dei o show da xanáia com as datas erradas.
São 24 horas e 27 minutos de livro.
Segue com o mesmo padrão: várias personagens, vários ícones excelentes que existem na história da literatura ficção, lugares riquíssimos da Europa, tudo mal executado. São mais de 780 páginas do samba do criolo doido.

Tivemos como busca central a filha de Van Helsing. Que, pra mim, é o Can Helsing do filme com Huge Jackman. Mas nesse caso, ele é ruinzinho, e deixou a filha beber sangue de vampiro. E que no final não serviu para o mais absoluto nada para o enredo. Quando deveria ter colocado a voz para fora, mesmo não muito lúcida, deu para trás..
E, para encontrar essa menina (que foi muito fácil demais com a ajuda de Irene), várias coisas esquecíveis e personagens fortes demais aparecem, entremeando as cenas, mas ser ter um peso significativo.
Dentre essas aparições, estão FREUD, DRÁCULA e MORIATY, além de traços de uma possível mescla com mitologia egípcia.

Entenda que Netflix liberou o seriado de Freud que é, de longe, um dos homens mais bonitos que ja vi na vida, e agora ele APARECE nesse audiobook com uma pegada bem diferente, o que faz a cabeça dar um pequeno nó. E sem necessidade.

O que entra na lista de coisas sem necessidade do livro: Justine cortar o cabelo, o micro-romance de Mary com o cara do trem, Diana e seus excessos, as propagandas de Cat sobre os demais volumes - o que deram zero tom cômico ao texto, o tornando infantilizado. Não tinha porque Catherine ficar toda negoçada só porque a Beatriz está de rolo com o moreno bonito e sensual (Clarence). Okay haver protecionismo com suas amizades, mas jogar areia nos relacionamentos é outra bem diferente. Sem necessidade também, criar toda uma expectativa em cima de uma reunião, um líder dessa sociedade, para ser resolvido em um capítulo, num par de páginas.
O que nos leva a uma master vilã, porque a grande surpresa era que o líder da sociedade dos alquimistas seja uma mulher (Oh! Num livro no qual todos os personagens estão em seus gêneros invertidos. sarcasm): Ayesha .

A super vilã não dá raiva. Ela é discípula (ou a própria) de Isis, sim, a deusa do fucking Egito, bonita padrão Cleopatra, e sem noção como qualquer líder política do mundo. Mas que não dá raiva. Ela é mais velha que o tempo, e provavelmente mais ligeira que trombadinha na Sé, então como elas querem dobrar uma mulher dessas sendo espiã infiltrada? E ela tem razão. São mostro , sim, mas qual chance de termos mulher independentes que saiba se cuidar muito bem obrigada, caso a mutagenia promovida não as fizessem fortes?

No final, temos ainda por cima, a eleição de Mary como líder do grupo, porque ela é a mais adequada e responsável para o cargo. Não. A partir do momento que voce tem que relembrar forçadamente ao leitor de qualidades de um personagem através da voz de outros dentro da historia, é porque o valor da protagonista, não foi devidamente desenvolvido e desenhado ao decorrer do livro, que nos faria ansiar por esse tipo de recompensa ao personagem.

É um livro tolerável, e sem os diálogos de interlúdio, acredito que seria uma fantasia muito boa, com doses de mistério, amizades, e mulheres no poder.

...

Continuaremos no terceiro?

It was an enjoyable light read, though I thought that the story itself was somewhat drawn-out.

I am enjoying these books tremendously, and very glad to see there's going to be another one.

It was, or at least seemed, a little long. I think there was too much time spent on what people were wearing, what and when they were eating, train rides, new characters backstories, etc. Overall I enjoyed the book, especially sections involving Diana.

3.5 ⭐️

This book was pure fun. If you like anything Victorian, involving vampires, Frankenstein, 19th century
“monster” stories, that's not too heavy and is totally unique, this will do the trick. A feminist, revisionist retelling of sorts of the classic tales, the members of the Athena Club set off of another set of epic adventures across Europe in this book, to exciting ends. I enjoyed the characters, feeling like they could all be dear friends, and the various twists and turns throughout. While the writing is not exactly groundbreaking, the mysterious plotting and quirky characters stuck with me regardless. It was exactly what I needed right now.