The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe

This is one of the lesser-known Ann Radcliffe books, the first I have personally read and, from what I hear, pretty representative of Radcliffe's other books. The female protagonist, Adeline, continues to get thrown into dire straits, keeps coming close to the edge of salvation, and then endures more misery before finally marrying the suitor of her choice (there were several) and partying with her friends. The book, being a Gothic novel, is sort of a blend between quaint images of the forest, sensitive musings of the main character, and creepy villainy, assassination rumors, yellowed manuscripts, and hidden skeletons (both figurative and literal).

First of all, Ann Radcliffe really deserves a lot of credit because this book was, after all, published in 1790, a time when novels were fairly new to the publishing world. She did quite a nice job at writing an interesting story with several twists and turns. To be fair, I actually really enjoyed this novel. Maybe it was because I was reading it fairly fast, but I thought it was pretty exciting. I was definitely interested in finding out what was going to happen.

But the literary critic in me (I know there's one in all of us) won't let it rest there. The book was fun, but it was also predictable. The characters lacked depth. Adeline was the quintessential damsel in distress, and the marquis was a perfectly evil villain. The character of La Motte, who at first saves Adeline but then takes part in the marquis's evil plot in order to save his own backside, was somewhat more interesting, but his character development had some inexplicable "huh?" moments.

Top Ten Books I'm Most Excited to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. 

Today is a Top Ten Tuesday freebie and since my literary excitement is still new and fresh, I thought I'd write about books I'm excited to read! (Both from my Classics Club list and otherwise.)

10. The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe. This isn't on my list, but I need to read it for a class. I'm actually really excited about it! I'm severely deficient in pre-Victorian novels (except for Shakespeare), so I'll be glad to get one under my belt. Especially because a) it was written by a woman, and b) at the time it was written, novels were just starting to get popular. Aaaand it's a Gothic novel. It just intrigues me...

9. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. Oh, Dickens! I'm really excited to just get my teeth into this book. It's been a while since I've read a really massive novel, and I also want to get a lot more familiar with Dickens (hence my many titles by him on my list of classics). Plus, one of my professors mentions it and how wonderful it is every couple weeks, and she is one of my favorite professors (despite some horrific expectations, but that's another blog post).