Family Saga

Admittedly, I stuck with this book because I'm curious to find out what happens in the overall saga, not because I necessarily enjoyed the read.

That is, I enjoyed some parts, and there's one character I like. But I feel he's settling for the short end of the stick (almost like a distant, inevitable turn in the saga is just using him for now) and that it'll get worse for him before it gets better, if he appears in the next book.

As for the rest of the leading characters, the overdramatic and unnatural feel to them still keeps me from connecting with them. Besides that, much or most of this story is full of tragedy and depression, with a whole lot of sermonizing added in.

Still, my overall love for historical sagas persists, and I'm wondering where all of this is headed.

So, yeah. The series has got me interested enough to keep going. ( )

I read this before, worth reading again. Kind of a variation of romeo & Juliet... ( )

Second in the Stonewycke trilogy. Maggie and Ian have run off and gotten themselves hitched, against the wishes of her Evil Father. He finds them!! He chases them!! They have to go to America to get away !!!!!!!! But Ian can't go!!! He must protect his honor!!!! So he sends Magge on without him!!!!! Will they both survive to see each other again?!!?!?!?! Will this book end happily?????? Can I use enough exclamation points to show how wonderfully bad this book was?!?!?!?
The answers, in order, are: Yes, no, and not a chance. Of course, the first answer is just conjecture, but no book this predictable is going to kill off either one of their main characters. They just try to create cliffhanger moments to make their readers come back for more.
I will come back, thanks, but not because I care about what happens to Mr and Mrs. Mary Sue. This is one of those books which is so bad, it's fun to read. While some parts, with their blatant misogyny (A wife's greatest joy is serving her husband - even if there's a good chance it'll get the whole family killed.) pissed me off, other parts were so simplistic and internally inconsistent they made me laugh out loud.
For example, at one point Maggie is having Deep Thoughts, and concludes that God has nothing to do with evil. She later has a Deep Conversation with Mr. Mary Sue the II who Pines for her Love, and they conclude that God takes little interest in human affairs - he likes for people to come to him broken and wounded so he can heal their pain. (Summary of their words, not mine.) Then, later in the book, Mr. Mary Sue the III (these authors like Mary Sues. Could you tell?) goes ecstatic over the fact that he is 'not responsible for his own actions' as god is his guiding every step. Gee, these three espoused viewpoints work together right well, don't they? My dissatisfaction, though, is caused less by including all of these options for explaining the presence of evil, than by the fact that none of these options ... work. The authors work hard to present three different arguments, and all of them are faulty.
Yeah, I had fun with it. However, I recommend everyone else stay far away. 3/10 ( )

The Stonewycke Trilogy, Book 2