Booking Through Thursday.....

I read a very fun book this week and wanted to share it with you all. I love to read and so do several of my friends, and Corey, so I thought it might be fun to try and do a weekly meme based on book reviews. So, here goes. If you want to do a "Booking Through Thursday" book review, just leave a link to your post in the comments and then link back here in your post and we can all read each other's latest book finds!

The book for today's "Booking Through Thursday" is A Proper Pursuit by Lynn Austin.

This was the choice for our book club for our November meeting, and I happened to find it at the awesome used book store we visited this past weekend.

I have to say, that this book actually inspired me to create a post and weekly theme about it, because I just enjoyed it so much!

It isn't a deep, thought-provoking, life changing kind of read. On the contrary, it is pretty light reading, silly, and just fun. The main character is a sort of mix between an Anne of Green Gables, and Jo, from Little Women. She has just graduated from a "finishing school" for young ladies. She goes to visit her aunts in turn of the century Chicago, who each have their own agenda for finding her a husband (or not at all in the case of one rebellious suffragette aunt). Violet is the main character's name and I just loved her from the first page! She has the habit of remembering people she meets by creating a nick-name for them that reflects their personality, and I found myself laughing at how "frankly" she thinks, but at the same time she is trying to appear to be nice and "acceptable" like so many people do! She ends up trying to find her mother, 4 different "beaus" propse to her, and to tell you the truth for a lot of the novel you don't really know which way she is going to go. I knew there was going to be some kind of interesting twist to how it all came together but it wasn't boringly obvious.

If you like Christian Fiction, and historical novels, I think you will love this book. I read it in 3 sittings over 2 days, because it was just fun and fast paced and easy to read and enjoy. A main setting of the book is the 1893 World's Fair, which she happens to visit with 3 of her potential suitors...showing a different side of the Fair with each visit. The description of the Fair is fascinating...especially the point of view of Violet experiencing "Mr. Ferris' Wheel" for the first time.

Here is one cute little excerpt from the book...Violet is trying to figure out a way to keep her father from remarry-ing a dislikable widow and bringing her two obnoxious children into the family. She speculates that the widow actually murdered her first husband and is fishing for information to incriminate her. Violet, throughout the book, gives nicknames to the other characters based on what she thinks about them....

"It's so tragic that she was widowed at such a young age, isn't it? I was away at school when her husband died, so I'm not sure I ever heard the cause of his demise."
"It was most unfortunate, I'm sorry to say. He tumbled down the cellar stairs and struck his head."
Ah ha! Just as I thought! Murderous Maude had pushed him! Homely and Horrid had probably strewn objects in his path to aggravate his fall, and greased the handrail for good measure. I masked my glee with what I hoped was a look of horror."
-excerpt from A Proper Pursuit, by Lynn Austin

Happy Reading!