![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Nov. 14th, 2012 07:31 pm
I needed to babble about it, I guess
Today, I finally read "Aunt Maria" by Diana Wynne Jones after having it for six months, which is a long time to leave a DWJ book sitting by my count.
It wasn't one of her stronger books, certainly, but I enjoyed it a great deal. Probably because Aunt Maria herself makes for a particularly compelling antagonist. I think most people have experienced that relative (or romantic partner) who controls everyone around them through guilt and passive-aggression and emotional manipulation. It's tiring and depressing and makes you miserable, but trying to point it out has them turning it around to how awful you're being to them, until you're left feeling bad for being angry or upset in the first place.
The entire first half of "Aunt Maria" was painfully true to that experience, and it was surprisingly nice to read the POV character -- Mig's -- feelings and thoughts as she struggled with being caught by it, ( spoilers I guess? )
Ultimately, good read. Recommended to other fans of Diana Wynne Jones, though if you've never read her stuff before, get yourself over to the Chrestomanci and Dalemark Quartet series first.
(well, there's always "Howl's Moving Castle", of course, but I liked the books from those series better. Judge me)
It wasn't one of her stronger books, certainly, but I enjoyed it a great deal. Probably because Aunt Maria herself makes for a particularly compelling antagonist. I think most people have experienced that relative (or romantic partner) who controls everyone around them through guilt and passive-aggression and emotional manipulation. It's tiring and depressing and makes you miserable, but trying to point it out has them turning it around to how awful you're being to them, until you're left feeling bad for being angry or upset in the first place.
The entire first half of "Aunt Maria" was painfully true to that experience, and it was surprisingly nice to read the POV character -- Mig's -- feelings and thoughts as she struggled with being caught by it, ( spoilers I guess? )
Ultimately, good read. Recommended to other fans of Diana Wynne Jones, though if you've never read her stuff before, get yourself over to the Chrestomanci and Dalemark Quartet series first.
(well, there's always "Howl's Moving Castle", of course, but I liked the books from those series better. Judge me)
