Apparently I have a reading quirk. When I am sick, and only when I’m sick, I have to read Maya Rodale. Her work has too many cute pop culture references to suit me in a normal state. But when I’m loaded up on Nyquil, nothing makes me quite as happy as a Maya Rodale novel.
Lady Claire Is All That is a homage to the movie She’s All That, but since I am apparently one of the only people on earth who never saw the latter I have no basis for comparison. It’s also supposed to be a tribute to Ada Lovelace, a mathematician who really did exist. However, the only thing that Lady Claire and Ada have in common is that they both love math. It’s also the third book in the Keeping Up With the Cavendishes series. I read the first book, Lady Bridget’s Diary (Grade: B-) ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au ) but not the second, and I didn’t feel I had missed much in terms of being able to follow Book #3. However, I did think that the first book laid the groundwork for the plight of the Cavendish family. Also, the books take place at roughly the same time, so I did enjoy seeing the misadventures of the first book play out in the background of Lady Claire’s story.
Lady Claire is one of the sisters in an American family (The Cavendishes) who unexpectedly become members of the British aristocracy (just roll with it). As the oldest sister in a family with no mother, Claire feels compelled to ensure her family’s happiness above her own. She’s also obsessed with math and she’s desperate to meet the inventor of the Difference Engine (an early calculator). Her unladylike ways, her American upbringing, and her insistence on discussing math with everyone make her a social outcast. She’s a nerd.
Our hero, Lord Fox, is not a nerd. He is, if anything, a jock. He’s also been recently jilted, and his Male Pride (in the book, “Male Pride” is always capitalized) has been injured. Fox is goaded into betting ownership of his beloved dog (FUCK YOUR MALE PRIDE, YOU ASSHOLE) that he can make Lady Claire popular in two weeks. If he wins, he gets his enemy’s favorite horse and if he loses, his enemy gets the dog. Of course, Fox falls in love with Claire just the way she is, and of course, she falls madly in love with him, even though the two are complete opposites.
You’ll notice that I speak of Lord Fox with certain hostility. I think Lord Fox is funny, charming, attentive, and much more intelligent than he gets credit for. He’s also a total douchebag. Fuck him and his Male Pride which makes everything all about him and causes him to treat living creatures, human and other, as trophies.
I also feel a deep sense of annoyance regarding Claire’s glasses. The minute Claire removes her spectacles (which, on the book cover, appear to have come from a sale at Lenscrafters) Fox is smitten by her beauty.
Listen, people. GLASSES ARE NOT A FULL FACE MASK. If you are a stunning vision of grace and beauty, then glasses, even unflattering ones, will not conceal your loveliness. They might distract from it, hence “unflattering,” but if you stick glasses on Angelina Jolie she still looks like Angelina Jolie. On the other hand, I was thrilled that Claire really could not see without her glasses on, and the reaction of her family and friends to her determination to get through a very blurry ball sans glasses was adorable.
Between the glasses and the dog betting, you’d think I’d spend the whole reading experience in a rage, but while I was on Nyquil, I was too hopped up on cold medication to care. Fox really is quite charming. It was hard to remember that he bet his dog and that apparently he can’t see anything but glasses when glasses are in a room. It’s also important to note that he experiences great remorse over the whole dog thing, and Lady Claire calls him out in livid detail about the dog more than once – she’s more furious about his poor treatment of the dog (who adores Fox and presumably will suffer in his absence) than his treatment of her. Fox’s behavior is not condoned.
And yet, even without the Nyquil, this book is quite charming. For one thing, while I loathe math, I LOVE a brainy heroine. I also found it incredibly relatable that while Fox hates math from the first page of the book to the last, he loves that Claire loves math. He loves her enthusiasm, if not the topic about which she is enthused. Claire is never that interested in sports, but she recognizes that doing a sport well does in fact require considerable intelligence, and she recognizes that Fox is much smarter than he thinks he is. They are able to appreciate each other’s interests without actually wanting to participate in them.
To say that I only like this author’s work when I am, let’s face it, incredibly stoned on cold medicine is not high praise, but it’s not an insult either. It takes a special writing quality and considerable skill to both soothe and entertain someone who is sick and miserable, and I had a wonderful time hanging out under my electric blanket reading this book. The language is quite lovely and the story is both simple and entertaining. The characters are fun – for all his faults, Fox is quite engaging. Claire is utterly delightful. Francesca, the Alpha Mean Girl, is suitably mean and unexpectedly awesome. It’s a lovely world to spend time in, and a lovely collection of characters to spend time with.
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Thanks for the review and I hope you’re feeling better! 😉
Thanks! I am much better, at last.
I think I’m going to need to buy this book because She’s All That is one of my favorite teen romcoms (after Clueless & 10 Things I Hate About You). I’m a sucker for a classic Pygmalion/My Fair Lady plot, and you get the bonus of classic 90s/early 00s references set in an unrealistic high school! Also a Buffy cameo! Truly something for everyone.
The glasses thing is a proper homage to She’s All That, a movie whose only effort to make Rachael Leigh Cook look like a nerd was to plop a pair of (cute) glasses on her face. It was the barest concession possible to make a movie star seem nerdy.
The beautiful-with-her-glasses-off scene in that movie has been properly spoofed many times.
It’s ridiculous, but I can’t imagine writing a take on She’s All That and leaving out the most famous scene.
Does he get to keep his dog and/or get the dog back? It might be spoilery, but I need to know before I decide if I can read the book or not.
You’d be surprised–but the “oh my God, she’s unrecognizable without the glasses” thing can actually happen in real life. I’ve had multiple people “swear” they didn’t recognize me without my specs–and get borderline condescending asking questions . . . like the thought never occurred to me that wearing glasses might get awkward or fashionable frustrating at times. sigh…
100% put iff by the title. I HATE anachronism.
As a non-glasses-wearing person, I have always found glasses extremely attractive. It probably helps that in our culture glasses = nerd, and I love nerds. HOWEVER, I was recently watching Murdoch Mysteries, and at one point the new morgue assistant put on (old-timey) glasses, and I was like, whoa, those are very unattractive! Then she took them off and was stunningly beautiful again. So now I have revised my opinion of glasses to differentiate from modern glasses (sexy) and old-timey glasses (deeply unsexy). I realize this is all extremely shallow of me.
@Jenn: The dog is fine.
Great review, Carrie!
I have to wear glasses in order to see things in focus. I find them annoying most times so much so I don’t wear them around the house because they bother me and frankly I don’t care if I see my house or my husband in focus. I have to wear them when I drive or anywhere but home because it feels all scary fuzzy, not warm and fuzzy. They are a real pain when it rains. My glasses are frameless so not really different with or without. I guess my “Pygmalion” moment is putting on makeup because I don’t wear it most of the time. People can’t figure out (politely) why I look so different. lol
I have not read Lady Claire Is All That but I have read Maya Rodale’s Bad Boys and Wallflowers series and really enjoyed them. I liked the movie She’s All That. She’s Out of Control is a similar older movie that I liked even better.
@Gloriamarie I agree 100%. I hate the trend of cutesy-poo titles these days. I’ve been very vocal about my aversion to the sassy historicals out there right now and these ridiculous titles take my dislike up to 11.
@Francesca, thank you. I was reading an otherwise enjoyable story set in the 1870s. It’s about magic and these white supremacists who want to make England the dominant country and culture all over the world and the brave men and women who oppose them and Our Hero turns to a witch and says he needs visual aids. As if they had visual aids in the nineteenth century. AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH I HATE anachronism.
@Gloriamarie:
It’s about magic and these white supremacists who want to make England the dominant country and culture all over the world
Uhmm … This is fiction we’re talking about?
In the 1870s, I’m pretty sure “visual aids” would have been interpreted as “aids to vision”, i.e. glasses. Not that the term was actually used, just that that’s what people would assume it meant.
What’s next? An Arthurian romance called Gawain’s World? A Regency called Charlotte’s a Deb? How about a struggling pastry chef – Beauty and the Yeast.
@Louise, “Uhmm … This is fiction we’re talking about?” yes, I noticed that too. The term “visual aids” was used in the modern sense as he wanted the witch to conjure images that would make what he was saying more understandable. The context was quite clear.
Once I took my glasses off in order to wipe them, and this guy across the room actually yelled. He claimed it was just Very Startling because allegedly I look Completely Different without them, but I couldn’t interpret it as anything other than horror.
I’ve always found glasses extremely attractive on people (and I’ve been wearing them since 4th grade, so ya know..). I remember my husband and I were in our first year of marriage when he had to get glasses, and he was self-conscious about it, while I was going, “YOU ARE SO HANDSOME RIGHT NOW.”
This book sounds cute and I see nothing wrong with knowing what you like when you’re sick and hopped up on cold meds. Comfort is okay.
Also, as for the “beautiful without the glasses” thing, Not Another Teen Movie had a bit of fun with that one.
Remember “boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”? Fun stereotype for a life-long glasses wearer.
Like many authors, Maya Rodale can be hit or miss with me, but more hit than miss. And that’s despite a general annoyance with historical inaccuracies, anachronisms, and cutesy titles. I think there is a certain redeeming sweetness to most of her stories. Plus, the general setup reminds me a bit of Kleypas’s Hathaways. I have the first book in this series, so I think I need to pick it up to try to end my historical romance drought.
Thanks, and hope you have a speedy recovery!
I read one Maya Rodale book and never again. Talk about anachronistic. They are basically modern people in period clothing.
While I don’t like anachronisms in dialogue (I just finished a book set in the early 1800s by a historical author I like and the hero asked the heroine, or was it the reverse, if s/he would “go to bed with me.” While that phrase may have been used 200 years ago to mean “have sex,” I kind of doubt it.), I actually appreciate cute titles that are clever plays on modern words or phrases or movie or song titles. So, outside the story, it’s okay with me but inside, nope.
I HATE anachronism.
I think you gotta distinguish between Potato Rage anachronism, and aw-heck-let’s-just-have-a-good time anachronism.
This one sounds cute, although I’m really sick of these stories about modern movies/reality shows/etc. getting plonked into historical time periods. I have decided to stop reading Sarah Maclean until she’s finished with her Regency Kardashians for that reason. I may be in the minority as there seems to be no shortage of this type of book.
This discussion has really interested me.
I was introduced to the Regency period via Jane Austen initially, poets and playwrights of that period, and later through the work of Georgette Heyer. For a while there, I would gobble anything set in that time frame.
In the past few years, though, I have been reading less and less because I no longer have the sense of being transported to a time when people not only wore different clothes but also spoke and thought differently than we do today.
Not only different vocabulary but different grammar. Literate people of that day spoke proper grammar and did not use the lazy forms we have become accustomed to recently. Punctilious people would have said “It is she” or “it is he.” They would not use “not” in the awkward way we do today.
How do I know? The literature contemporary with the period bears our my assertions.Sometimes I wonder if the research author’s conduct today is to read each other’s books, rather than the primary sources of the Regency.
Once again, where is the appearance of verisimilitude?
@Lousie, “I think you gotta distinguish between Potato Rage anachronism, and aw-heck-let’s-just-have-a-good time anachronism.”
No, I don’t. Not if they want my money. If they want my money, they can offer me a quality product, not hacks.
Thank you for the review! I love Maya Rodale’s writing. It’s very easy to engage with and has a fantastic feel to it (I love fantasy and magical realism). There’s magic in her writing. Or, at least, I feel quite under a spell when I read her stories.
@Gloriamarie – I grew up on Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer too, and remain a fan. But I’d be careful about saying “literate people of that day spoke proper grammar and did not use lazy forms.” In Persuasion Charles Musgrove, who unquestionably has “a gentleman’s education” (e.g. a good grounding in Greek and Latin which he has certainly forgotten since he’s an amiable jock) calmly says “an’t I good boy, mother?” and Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice says “that shan’t prevent my asking him to dine here.” (This is the woman who taught Elizabeth Bennet to read, remember.) The supremely snobbish and wealthy Fanny Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility says “they are very pretty, ma’am, an’t they?” and Mrs. Jennings says “I an’t the least astonished in the world.” Austen herself wrote that she had “lop’t and crop’t” the manuscript of Pride and Prejudice. People have ALWAYS slurred words together, though which ones they slur and which they distinguish tend to vary by century and region and dialect.
As to the idea that “lower class” characters only speak this way in Austen, she does tend to avoid having her heroes and heroines use contractions. But so do Victorian novelists like Dickens, who invariably have their “good” heroes (Pip, David Copperfield, etc.) speak “standard” English even when it’s supremely improbable that they would, and when all of the people around them speak in quite heavy dialect. That’s an artistic choice to signal virtue, NOT necessarily a reflection of how people “really talked.”
The anachronisms that drive me crazy in Regencies (and why I’ve pretty much given up on them too) tend to be more subtle issues about language use. “That will be fine” is NOT a way of signifying agreement. (One might speak about a fine seam, or a fine day, but “it’s fine” as a statement of agreement didn’t exist.) Austen herself ripped into “nice” (a meaning that was clearly in the process of changing) in Northanger Abbey, but there are other common words whose meaning has changed just SLIGHTLY enough to sound awkward in period.
Mind you, writing something that doesn’t sound stilted but also avoids the entire vocabulary around emotions and the already dead metaphors about technology we use all the time is DIFFICULT. Look at the following generic summary: Lord X has sworn never to love again after a *traumatic* event in his past. But when he is thrown into Lady Y’s company he *unconsciously* starts to break his resolution. Severely practical Lady Y has always distrusted *emotions*. But she finds it hard to resist Lord X’s charm. When a tragedy leaves Lord X in a *state of shock*, Lady Y’s heart finally receives a *wake-up call*.
Note that ALL the words or phrases with asterisks are anachronistic for the early 19th Century, at least as used in their current sense. How do you write a love story when the early 19th century words for emotions are nearly all different, or have different connotations? Then there are words like “condescending” where the connotation is opposite, and “egregious” where the meaning has in fact shifted 180 degrees. Does a modern author use them “incorrectly” according to a contemporary dictionary, and risk readers saying “you idiot, this word means the opposite” or go with the anachronism? (Personally, I would try to avoid them altogether, but it’s not easy.)
It’s a tough balancing act, and while the failed results set my teeth on edge also, I think it’s a bit more complicated than just “reading primary sources.” There’s also the question of how to integrate primary sources, and the fact that the existing primary sources are in fact incredibly limited in their expression of a whole range of experiences, not to mention having a fairly narrow social range. (Curse words, for example, make scant appearance in Austen or Burney, as do any explicit terms involving sex.)
I’m one hundred percent with you on that cute titles set my teeth on edge, but I always figure that the author has little to no control over anything on the cover of the book, so I try to not be too prejudiced, though frequently the insides of the books are equally a disappointment in terms of the issues mentioned above.
@Rebecca, Thank you for your thoughtful response. Really appreciate it. My opinions are for the benefit of no other than myself, of course, so I appreciate the respect you gave them. I hope I return the same courtesy. I am also the first to admit, I am a very picky reader. No one else has to be. That’s just as I am.
I have also noticed some of the things you mentioned. I have often wondered is “an’t” was considered an acceptable usage back in the day. And while Mrs. Benett may have taught Lizzie Bennet to read, she is not a model of intellect.
What I was thinking about and perhaps didn’t make clear was the sloppiness of our modern usage put in the mouths of those who would not have been as sloppy, as far as I can tell from the primary sources.
You ask “Does a modern author use them “incorrectly” according to a contemporary dictionary, and risk readers saying “you idiot, this word means the opposite” or go with the anachronism? (Personally, I would try to avoid them altogether, but it’s not easy.)”
My answer is that Heyer seems to have done it. Now, granted I wouldn’t want every single author of Regency novels to imitate or write in the style of Heyer, I merely mention that she managed.
To me “I think it’s a bit more complicated than just “reading primary sources” implies “the question of how to integrate primary sources.”
Cute titles do set my teeth on edge and I have been under the perhaps mistaken impression, that authors choose their titles and to some extent their covers. Such is the experience of the authors I personally know.
The authors I know also tell me that there are writers who are driven to write out of a passion for writing and there are authors who do it solely to make an easy buck. My response has always been “how can writing make an easy buck” but they assure me that if one finds the right formula which can be turned into a series, it can be done.
I wince at that because I rather despise formulaic writing and I detest milking a series that really has no over-arching theme that unites the series so that each volume must be read in order. A series in which the books are stand-alones are not among my favorites. When I read a series, I want each volume to develop the plot of the first volume, I want the characters of the first volume further developed as well as introducing new characters.
When they don’t, I can’t really consider additional volumes as part of a series. Rather they are set in the world of the first one. Which si not necessarily a drawback. I recently read a group of novels by Patricia C. Wrede set in her Lyra world. That worked for me because each book addressed very specifically different things and was not simply a retelling of the same story over and over but with different characters as in some so-called series.
Recently I also read a series by Zoe Archer, Blades of the Rose, which truly was a series as in each volume the plot advanced with the aim of destroying the white supremacist British chauvinistic bad guys.
Some steampunk works for me because it is a very careful, thoughtfully worked out way to blend historical anachronisms into an earlier time period. In other cases historical anachronisms seem to me to occur either because the author simply isn’t aware or is too lazy to find out or it is simply too convenient. I don’t know, of course, all I can really talk about is how it feels to me. There have been times when such is my impression.
In fact, such is my impression based solely on the title of this book. For me, myself, and I alone, with academic degrees in history and a lifelong pursuit of my interests in history, the imposition of a twentieth century movie title upon a novel set in the Regency when “all that” was never a consideration, is enough to keep me from reading this particular Rodale, despite that fact that I have read and enjoyed others she has written. And may again in the future.
At the same time, I feel like life is too short to read anything with less than a B+ grade.
I’ve given up on Maya Rodale and her cutesy titles and poorly written book.
If you want to read a good book with a heroine who is actually good at math, and a hero who is hot and appreciates the heroine’s mind and beauty -read Kelly Bowen’s new book “Between the Devil and the Duke”. It’s so good and so well written!
I’ve given up on Maya Rodale and her cutesy titles and poorly written books.
If you want to read a good book with a heroine who is actually good at math, and a hero who is hot and appreciates the heroine’s mind and beauty -read Kelly Bowen’s new book “Between the Devil and the Duke”. It’s so good and so well written!