Customer Reviews

The Bride's Farewell: A Novel

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3 star:		(5)
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As someone who reads to escape, to learn about my world and myself, and to find solitude without being alone, I've been hooked on Meg Rosoff's books since the apocalyptic "How I Live Now" was published in 2004. Whatever form of narrative voice she employs, Rosoff seems consistently able to convey a sense of intimacy with the reader. A disturbed teen discovering her own strength and capacity to love during crisis draws me close to her because of how she speaks: alternately with humor, vulnerability and passion. The Yeats-referencing centenarian who channels his 16-year old self in narrating Rosoff's 2007 novel, "What I Was," appears, against odds, clued in to the workings of my own psyche as he tells his story and dispenses his wisdom. While Rosoff is above all a gorgeous writer, funny, tender and surprising, her books have this added power because she is so emotionally honest. Rosoff is drawn to the outcast, those who are displaced in society or family, and her stories should resonate with any sensitive reader. Her characters play out their internal struggles against stark exterior landscapes that hint of the sublime - "great rolling swards of chalk grassland...skies dotted with hobby and merlin." ("The Bride's Farewell")
"The Bride's Farewell" offers up another non-conforming protagonist and my favorite yet, Pell Ridley, in an epoch-defying romance that happens to be set in 19th century England. Pell jilts her fiancé on the eve of their wedding, leaving home with just her horse and a mute younger brother who refuses to stay behind. Heading for a horse fair in Salisbury, "less a plan than a starting point," she meets a series of strangers who help determine the course of her journey. The story weaves back and forth between Pell's dismal upbringing and her flight from home, ever mindful of the interplay between fate and free will, a repeated theme of the author explored fancifully in her 2006 novel, "Just in Case." Animals are always significant in Rosoff's books, and when Pell first discovers the velocity of her beloved horse while training him it's a horse-as-metaphor clue that she has the requisite courage to strike out for an unknown destiny: "For those poor souls who can only think of the terrible fear and danger of a runaway horse, think of this: a speed like water flowing over stone, a skimming sensation that hovers and dips while the world spins round and the wind drags your skin taut across your bones. You can close your eyes and lose yourself in the rhythm, because nothing you do or shout or wish for will happen until the running makes up its mind to stop."
In a single, understated passage, "The Bride's Farewell" contains one of the most romantic moments in a novel that I've read in years. But ultimately it's a book about family - the one Pell leaves, the one she finds, and the one she finds again.

In an enchanting tale of a hard won and unique "happily ever after", Meg Rosoff creates Pell, a young woman so determined not to follow the path most taken and dreamed of by girls her age, that she does the unthinkable, on what should be the happiest day of her life. But her dream to return to the freedom she knew as a girl riding swiftly on her beloved horse is immediately derailed by the reality of life as a young woman traveling alone in a desperate world. Complete with deception by friend and foe alike, desperation, and determination beyond possibility, Pell's story sweeps you along...rooting for her, aching with her, and, ultimately, admiring her as she lets go of much of what she knows and loves, and forges a future different from what she envisioned, but welcoming in its own right. Pell's story is a beautiful tale to be enjoyed not only for its richness of language but for its embrace of the possible. My daughter and I enjoyed it immensely!

When I received The Brides Farewell by Meg Rossoff, I was quite doubtful. I am a huge lover of historical fiction and there is nothing more enticing to me than a big fat historical novel. This book is not big in stature, but it's big in story! I loved it!

Pell Ridley is teen girl living in 1850's England. On the day of her marriage to her long time friend, she runs off, leaving him at the alter. She becomes a teenage runaway bride. She does not want to a burdened wife, with too many children and an unfaithful husband. Can Pell make it work on her own? Can she find her independence in a time when women are not allowed to do so? Can she resist the temptation of returning to her childhood home and succumb to the life she has always feared?

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves historical fiction and romance.

I loved this book. It is very well written and has characters and a plot line that pull you in- Hook, Line and Sinker. It was beautifully written, almost fairy tale like- but without the magic. One cannot help but feel connected to the heroine Pell (who has a gift for sealing with horses) as she travels though England after leaving her home with here little brother on the morning of her Wedding. Throughout her journey we get to meet many interesting, some friendly, some cruel, some indifferent characters whose lives intertwine drastically with Pell's- some in ways she can't even imagined. This is an enchanting little book that I couldn't put down. If you liked this author's previous works, or are a fan of Shannon Hale (She wrote "Goose Girl") then you will love this book.

Meg Rosoff writes in a spare, melancholy but beautifully executed style in this tale set in 1850's rural England of a young girl who does the unthinkable (at least in those days)--she runs away on her wedding day from a perfectly respectable match in her village. A person who has an exceptional gift with horses, Pell takes a chance by taking her horse Jack and her younger brother, a mute who tags along with her despite her misgivings, to the Salisbury Fair, where she hopes to find work. This book portrays the hardships of life in those days for the poor--finding respectable work with horses turns out to be much more difficult than she imagines, and she is soon separated from both her brother and her horse. The many twists and turns in the plot lead to a somewhat happy ending, although this is definitely not a sugar-coated sentimental tale. Those girls who enjoy stories with horses with a little romance thrown in are likely to especially like this book. Recommended for 13 and up because of some violent scenes.

THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL is a novel about journeys, about the literal and figurative quest to find one's place in the world. Not surprisingly, given its nearly constant sense of motion, the book starts out immediately with its heroine, Pell Ridley, leaving her childhood home in the dark of night. Pell, however, is no ordinary runaway. She's leaving on the eve of her marriage to the neighborhood blacksmith's son, Birdie, a simple man whose proposal represents hope to Pell's impoverished, miserable family, but spells misery to Pell herself.

Pell leaves home with little but a handful of coins and her beloved horse, Jack. She is soon joined, however, by her adopted little brother, a watchful mute child known only as Bean. Pell has a mysterious affinity for horses, so she, Jack and Bean head to the Salisbury Fair, with little plan other than to find some sort of work during the famous horse market there. But little goes as planned at the fair --- Pell garners little attention other than as a woman traveling alone, and the gypsy family who befriends their small party has secrets of their own. When Pell's one opportunity at a legitimate income goes horribly awry, she finds herself ever more adrift, dependent on the exceedingly rare kindness of strangers.

Left with no company other than a surprisingly useful gypsy dog, Pell wanders the British countryside, finding comfort in unexpected places but constantly questioning her place in the world, especially when her own mistrust prompts her to return to her childhood home in Nomansland --- where she discovers a world even more miserable and topsy-turvy than the one she left. As Pell continues her journey, she must discover for herself whether or not any people are worthy of the kind of trust she places in, and comfort she derives from, the animals in her life.

Set in a fictionalized but recognizable rural England in the mid-19th century, THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL may remind some readers of the works of Thomas Hardy (Pell's name even bears some resemblance to Hardy's famous heroine, Tess). Its straightforward plot and surprising connections also make the novel feel satisfyingly old-fashioned, while its somber but lyrical tone grants it an unexpected beauty at odds with its often grim subject matter.

As with her previous novels, Meg Rosoff's latest treads the line between young adult and adult fiction. With its young heroine and quest narrative, THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL may seem aimed at young people, but its quiet loveliness and narrative power will appeal to readers of all ages. One gets the feeling that Rosoff, whose books have been marketed to both teenagers (as with the post-apocalyptic award-winner HOW I LIVE NOW) and adults (as this one is), writes not for particular audiences but for the pure power of the stories she's telling, trusting that astute readers --- however old they are --- will find them and appreciate them.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

I have just finished an amazing book.

It is part fairy tale, part love story. It is a cross between Charles Dickens and Lemony Snicket. It is part Brothers Grimm and part historical melodrama.

In other words, it is unclassifiable.

I am speaking of The Bride's Farewell, the new novel by the New York Bestselling, Carnigie Award Winning author Meg Rosoff. This is her fourth novel for young adults, but even there I would say that genre does not suit her.

Meg's novels are for young adults in that they feature a younger cast of characters. But the themes her books deal with are much more adult; incredibly darker and moodier than most juvenile fiction published today.

Her first novel, How I Live Now, featured a young girl and her cousin that have survived a bombing in a future not unlike ours; and fell in love. Her second novel, Just In Case, concerns a boy who, to escape Fate, reinvents himself; he even imagines an invisible dog for himself that other people can see. Her third novel, What I Was, can be described as a boarding house love story between two boys.

Quite obviously, Meg Rosoff never writes the same book twice.

I was eagerly awaiting to see what Meg Rosoff would give us with The Bride's Farewell. I wondered what the setting would be. In Rosoff's novels, the characters and the place around them play equally important roles.

She is a beautiful storyteller. For me, she seems to have written each of her books carefully, choosing each word so that it feels right. Though her books may be short in length (each of her four novels are around the 200 something page count), the emotion and the power in her novels makes the books feel stronger, somehow; more vibrant.

I'm always a little nervous when I begin a Meg Rosoff novel. Since no two stories are the same, I wonder where she is going to take me; what story she is going to tell. Her novels remind me of the novel in verse books written by Ellen Hopkins. Though Rosoff writes in prose, her books mirror Hopkins' in that they always present us with stories that are engaging, beautifully written and emotionally charged. And each time you open one of their novels you wonder where you are going to end up.


When I read a Meg Rosoff novel, I treat the book as if I am pursuing a gem. So clearly I had high expectations for The Bride's Farewell. Meg Rosoff's new novel has been one of my most anticipated reads of 2009.

I am delighted to say that I was not disappointed in the least.

Quite the contrary, in fact. I think that The Bride's Farewell is Rosoff's best book to date. It concerns sixteen year old Pell Ridley who runs away from her home on her wedding day in the year of eighteen hundred and fifty something.

She leaves home with only her horse Jack and her brother Bean, a boy who does not speak. What she returns with is so much more.

I won't say any more of the plot then that, only to say that you should experience the story as I did. Meg Rosoff writes novels that are not just merely read; they are explored. Each page brings you deeper into the story of Pell and what happens to her that, by the end, you will never want to leave her world.

Ultimately, The Brides Farewell is really about three things: It is about family and courage. And the incredible power of love.

Through stunning words, vivid imagery, Meg Rosoff has given us a delightful historical novel that reminds us of something important.

She reminds us that we cannot get where we are going, if we do not remember where we came from.

Though the book may seem grim at times, The Bride's Farewell is ultimately a joyous novel about the search for who we are and the happiness we find at discovering our place in the world.

So, I admit to some small bias here, being something of a Meg Rosoff fan, but I also admit I thought, deep down, that she couldn't possibly write four un-put-downable, funny, sad, beautiful books filled with exquisite details and meticulous research and a captivating protagonist... but she can and she has. Bride's Farewell is filled with beautifully drawn characters: people, animals and the English Countryside, all of whom will stay with you for a long time. Reading it made me want to ride a horse, own a dog, sew a dress and tramp across fields. It also made me really hungry.

The Bride's Farewell is an unabridged audiobook presentation of award-winning author Meg Rosoff's stirring novel, chronicling the story of a young woman who runs away from home on the day she is slated to marry her childhood sweetheart. Having grown up watching her mother struggle to provide for too many children with too little money and even less help from her preacher father, Pell Ridley has determined to escape the same fate. She takes her only possession, a majestic white horse, as she heads for Salisbury Fair in search of work and a new destiny. Yet her emotional ties to her family, her childhood, and her abandoned lover remain, forcing her to rethink her options during the course of her journey, in which she encounters gypsies, lost things, and romance in the unlikeliest of places. An emotionally moving saga, skillfully told by award-winning theater actress Susan Duerden. 5 CDs, 6 hours.

This book tells the story of a young girl named Pell. On the morning of her wedding, Pell makes an impulsive decision to run (rather ride) away from home. She dreams of a life better than the one she had at home, with an overworked and broken down mother, and an abusive, drunken father. But Pell fails to plan her escape and soon finds herself with no place to live, no job, very little food, and no where to go. She finds herself at the mercy of strangers, not all of whom are friendly and honest. She soon runs out of money and loses her brother. Times are tough and she is often treated with cruelty and indifference. She has to keep her wits about her at all times. There are a couple of times where men try to force themselves on her.

This book is well written and a fun, enjoyable read. This would be a great book to read on vacation. The chapters are short, the characters are likeable, and it moves at a quick pace. Life is not easy for Pell, but she refuses to give up. There is nothing weak about her. She makes the best of her circumstances and is willing to do whatever is necessary to protect herself and her siblings.

The only thing I didn't like about this book was the ending. I reached the end of the book and felt like the story wasn't finished yet. It felt like it needed at least one more chapter, or even an epilogue. It would have nice to have an epilogue that caught up with Pell a few years later and found her more stable and settled.

But I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an enjoyable summer read. I also think this would be a great book for a book club to read and discuss. I would definitely like to read other works by this author.