Books Tasted - Everything bookly (and a few other things)

Delia loaned me this book (as she often does) and I'm so glad she did! Wesley Stace's Misfortune is like a cross between Charles Dickens and traditional fairytales - you know, the scary ones with child kidnappings and blood and stuff. Misfortune is about a foundling baby boy raised as a girl by a mentally unstable (but not in a scary axe murderer way) lord in 19th-century England. It's amusing, disturbing, fascinating, and a bloody good read. It was very hard to put down.

The beginning of the novel, before the baby becomes a child, is told in the omnipotent voice, but after he reaches an age to tell his own story, the book switches to first person narration as the old man recounting his biography. It's a little disconcerting when it switches, even though it's done fairly well, but you settle back into the new style fairly well.

Mostly I loved this book. I've always been a sucker for fairytales, and this has lots of classic elements of a fairytale. It's very Dickensian not only from its time period, but also from its various plot twists. Which I don't want to give away because then you'll never read it! And although it is lengthy, it's nothing compared to a real Dickens book and I found it fairly easy reading. Parts of the book were a bit darker than I thought necessary for a good story, but overall, I would highly recommend Misfortune.