Customer Reviews

The Heroines

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

When I pick up a novel, I want to go somewhere else. Completely. Ensconced in Favorite's midwestern B&B/heroines world right from the start, I found I didn't want to leave this place until I turned every last page of plots within plots, savoring lovely writing all along the way. Penny has a strong narrative voice--in turns witty, troubled, introspective, defiant, vulnerable--that's easy to hitch onto. Anchoring lively scenes with just the amount of detail that makes the fantastic believable, Favorite maintains a seamless line between reality and unreality. Reading this novel reminds me why I stopped with a Master's in English and didn't continue on with a soul-killing Ph.D: Postmodern scholarship sucks the magic out of literature, out of stories, out of imagining. The Heroines is a good, strong story, but also playful metafiction, an antidote to dusty notions of what stories are and should be. This one is a book-lover's delight. And it was such fun seeing Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche duBois again I had to rent the movies the next weekend to continue the escape.

The whole time I was reading this book I kept thinking that I was missing something. There is something here that I'm not seeing. Well, there was, but it wasn't what I was expecting, which is what kept me reading even though it was a little too late.

13 year old Penny Entwhistle is growing up in a Illinois prairie bed and breakfast with her mother Anne-Marie and housekeeper Gretta This isn't your usually retreat, this is the place that literary heroines such as Emma Bovary, Scarlett O'Hara and Catherine Earnshaw go to regroup when their lives are in distress. They come to Anne-Marie who strengthens them and encourages them back to their lives without interfering with the eventual plots of each story.

Anne-Marie is very strict in her belief that the heroines are not to be told the truth about the outcome of their fates in the book. But then one night a hero appears and thus changes the whole routine. What will have to be sacrificed to make the dangerous man return to his world? What truths will have to be told about the past?

What started out as an interesting plot turned me off when it branched into a sudden trek into Girl, Interrupted. That part which takes up a good portion of the book, just was lost on me. If Favorite had just stuck with the sudden arrivals of the Heroines and their stories it would have been, in my opinion, a much better book.

I was so disappointed in this I hardly know where to begin.

This mess of a book, though well-written, tried to do too many things at once. It begins with a charming concept: Heroines from famous books suddenly appear at the bed & breakfast run by 13 year-old Penny Entwhistle's mother, Anne-Marie. While Anne-Marie coddles and comforts the Heroines, being careful not to divulge their ultimate fates or plot lines to them, Penny rages and rebels over her mother's neglect. When a Hero arrives to reclaim his Heroine (a very unusual event), things start to get interesting. This was a grand start to what I imagined would be a wonderful romp of a story, but then the book suddenly veered into (as another reviewer here so aptly described it) 'Girl, Interrupted' territory, sending Penny into a horrifying psych ward for no apparent reason. The story just gets more and more jumbled from there.

Is this a fantasy about literary Heroines appearing in real life? Is it a gritty girl-trapped-in-the-looney-bin drama? Is it some sort of Freudian tale meant to have Serious Deeper Meaning (images of fatherless girls, forests, and puberty abound)? Why are there every-other-chapter references to Nixon and Watergate that do nothing to move the story along? Are the brief appearances of the Heroines real or imagined? The final straw for me was the tale of Penny's real father, which just tipped the whole thing over the edge into a complete muddle.

Worst of all, however, is the incredibly misleading story synopsis on the back of the book. I just felt cheated. This would have been a much better story if the author had just stuck to her original idea: the mayhem -- charming, chaotic or otherwise -- that results when figures from famous books come to call.

I only ask because I couldn't really find one. As others have mentioned the literary heroines only make brief appearances and then it is only to highlight the angst of the narrator.

Honestly, the book wasn't bad, it was just messy. The ending was wrapped up way to quickly, though I do think the book 'ended.' The heroines all made dramatic appearances, but then sort of fizzled out.

The book wasn't long, only 230 pages, I would rather have seen a book even twice that long with some serious meat to it, and more defined storylines than this book. I just feel like it was only half written.

The Heroines by Eileen Favorite is the story of 13-year-old Penny Entwistle whose mother Anne-Marie runs an unusual bed and breakfast: heroines from classic literature come there to recharge their batteries and rest. The heroines have been a part of Penny's life as long as she can remember, and keeping them a secret is starting to wear on her relationship with her mother. When a heroine named Deirdre shows up with her hero following her, the lies to protect them get Penny in deep trouble. First a warning: this book is NOT the chick-lit the back and cover would lead you to believe. Second, it's a frustrating read. Favorite's premise is fascinating and would have made a terrific book (and possible series) had she focused on the heroines and their interactions with Penny and Anne-Marie. Instead the book takes a very dark turn when Penny is institutionalized, and Anne-Marie does nothing to save her daughter. Anne-Marie is frustratingly passive throughout the story; she seems more like the pothead than her daughter with her inability to deal with situations constructively. Penny, like most confused early adolescent girls, pushes her mother away while craving her attention, and Anne-Marie seems incapable of taking care of anyone but her heroines. The time in the mental institution is an odd interlude and goes nowhere. Several interesting characters are introduced and then dropped. A police officer believing Anne-Marie and then making the trouble all go away seems too convenient and while I can suspend my disbelief about the heroines visiting the inn, the neat resolution is beyond credibility. The secret behind Penny's father is no secret and is told an another oddly placed segue way. The last chapter skips forward fifty years and leaves more questions unanswered than resolved. Penny seems to assume her mother's role of secret passivity. A dissatisfying ending. If Favorite had split up these major issues into separate books: Penny in the asylum, Anne-Marie's romance, etc. I would have read and probably enjoyed this as a series. Instead too much story is packed into a slim volume with frustrating results.

This book really fell short of my expectations. 1st of all, the "heroines" of the title make little more than cameo appearances throughout the book. 2ndly, the author spends time and pages introducing scores of characters with involved backstories, and then never goes anywhere with most of them. An editor should have helped her chose between the stories she needed to tell and the distracting extras. Between the messy storytelling and the misleading synopsis on the marketing materials, I think you'd do well to pass on this book and move on to something else.

This book had such a delightful premise- a young girl growing up in a bed-and-breakfast occasionally frequented by literature's most beloved heroines- that its meandering and inexplicable plot line was even more of a disappointment.

The best parts are the observations of young Penny on the heroines that come to stay; as she plays dolls with Pearl Prynne, watches Madame Bovary mope and tries not to get in the way of the tempramental Scarlett O'Hara. But far too little of the plot is dedicated to the actual heroines.

Instead we are given an upsetting and overlong detour to a teen psychiatric ward where Penny's mother unfairly consigns her. Penny's infatuation with the mercurial hero in pursuit of the most recent escaped heroine is a charming and well-written case of a teenage crush, but offers no resolution or revelations in Penny's life. The storyline of the fictional hero and heroine sets off the action, but is too hastily tied up and shoved off-stage to make way for the tepid conclusion.

And the ultimate twist ending that attempts to pose the question "Is Penny herself a heroine? What makes a heroine?" is bizarre and unsatisfying. The relationship between Penny and her mother miraculously fixes itself, and everyone lives happily ever after, except Madame Bovary, Scarlett, Blanche DuBois, Lady Chatterly, Anna Karenina........

This was an awesome book that I couldn't put down, I loved the characters and the plot. As I was reading I kept thinking what a great movie this story would make.

Favorite has presented a wonderful concept with her characters interacting with other literary characters. As we are guided through the journey via young Penny's point-of-view, I took time reading this book and found myself wondering what I would ask the heroines, what I would do if I happened to be a guest at the B&B and recognized a heroine, what would I do if they visited my home. It's a wonderful aside that drove my imagination, and I'm thankful the author didn't push me into too many interactions that would have unduly influenced my impressions but rather fed my imagination.

I've found since reading this book that I am reading many books differently: when would I tell a character to go to a B&B to take a break from their storyline, what would I do in that situation.

Readers of Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" series starting with "The Eyre Affair" will recognize "The Heroines" as an excellent complement to Thursday's adventures and world. In fact, I kept expecting Miss Havisham to show up and drag one of the characters back into the Book World.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable read that has influenced how I will read every book hereafter.

I loved this book. Unlike so many authors nowadays, Favorite assumes that her readers are not only literate but intelligent. Beginning with the idea of a boarding house occasionally visited by literary heroines taking a break before their turnaround moment, Favorite steers the story toward the coming of age of Penny, a confused teen living with her mother in the house. With a steady and subtle underpinning of Penny's story by metaphorical relationships with the heroines, Favorite asks us to make judgments and decisions without signposting everything. I constantly felt as though I was being asked to participate in the story rather than sit back and let everything be told to me by an overbearing and omniscisent authorial voice. By the end I was moved because I related to the characters, not because I was pummeled into "feeling."