50 Book Challenge Update

[pt_tangles]

#28 - Exit to Eden by Anne Rice

I've never read erotica before (not to say that I haven't read stories that border on porn, but I haven't read anything that was actually a GOOD story outside of the sex scenes), and I really liked this book. It has a kind of sweet sappy ending ... what was really important was that the characters were well written ... they were people that you could grow to care about. The mark of a great story, IMO.



Read

1. Industrial Magic (Kelley Armstrong)
2. Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch (Lora O'Brien)
3. Book of Shadows (Phyllis Curott)
4. Changeling (Cate Tiernan)
5. Strife (Cate Tiernan)
6. Witches Almanac (Elizabeth Pepper & John Wilcock)
7. Drawing Down the Moon (Margot Adler)
8. The Goddess Re-Awakening (Shirley Nicholson et al)
9. Origins (Cate Tiernan)
10. The Principa Discordia
11. Triumph of the Moon (Ronald Hutton)
12. Tapping the Dream Tree (Charles de Lint)
13. Witch: The Wild Ride from Wicked to Wicca (Candace Savage)
14. The Onion Girl (Charles de Lint)
15. Witchcrafting (Phyllis Curott)
16. Chocolat (Joanne Harris)
17. To Stir a Magick Cauldron (SRW)
18. The Good Luck Book (Bill Harris)
19. Eclipse (Cate Tiernan)
20. Reckoning (Cate Tiernan)
21. Living Druidry (Emma Restall Orr)
22. Full Circle (Cate Tiernan)
23. Night's Child (Cate Tiernan)
24. Druidry (Emma Restall Orr)
25. Sisters of the Dark Moon (Gail Wood)
26. Simple Wicca (Michelle Morgan)
27. Haunted (Kelley Armstrong)
28. Exit to Eden (Anne Rice)

In Progress

29. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer-Bradley)
30. Guardian of the Balance (Irene Radford)
31. Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts (Richard Weisman)
32. Natural Asthma Relief (C. Leigh Broadhurst)
33. Lasher (Anne Rice)
34. Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner (Scott Cunningham)

To Be Read

35. The Golden Bough (James Frazer)
36. Mastering the Tarot (Eden Gray)
37. Teach Yourself Fortune Telling (Rachel Pollack)
38. Velocity (Dean Koontz)
39. To Light a Sacred Flame ($RW)
40. The Chalice and The Blade (Riane Eisler)
41. Living Wicca: A Further Guide for the Solitary Practitioner (Scott Cunningham)
42. Memory and Dream (Charles De Lint)
43. Hades' Daughter (Sara Douglass)
44. Carpe Jugulum (Terry Pratchett)
45. The Witches Hammer (Jane Stanton Hitchcock)
46. Taltos (Anne Rice)
47. Guardian of the Trust (Irene Radford)
48. Tailchaser's Song (Tad Williams)
49. The Complete Works of the Brothers Grimm (Jacob Grimm)
50. Merrick (Anne Rice)


--Phae

Comments

[blackthornglade.livejournal.com]

It wasn't bad. The first 2/3 of the book is erotica that devolves to a plain romance by the end. :) Most of the kinked folk I know think the book stops when they left the island and it becomes a totally different book because Anne didn't have the ability to merge the two into a good ending.

She couldn't see a way out that wasn't "normal". Which is a problem that a *lot* of authors have when they play with topics like kink, polyamory, or alternative lifestyles. They're too afraid that the reading public won't be able to swallow the likely endings and cop out.

It's not a bad little book. But it has...issues. :)

[pt_tangles]

I don't really know a whole lot about this sort of stuff ... what do you think would have been a better ending?

--Phae

[blackthornglade.livejournal.com]

Seriously, something more along the lines of the movie in which they ponder "bondage and babies". The sudden shift away from all the protocol that's set up on the island is *very* jarring, particularly since it never really reasserts itself after they're off the island.

That type of training just doesn't *dead* stop. For Lisa, it would be pretty ingrained by that point, even if it wasn't for him, yet. You get a little touch of it here and there, but it's like they turn off the lights and become J. Happy Couple in Suburbia, comparatively.

The island was Lisa's *life*. That's not as easy to shake as it's made to look in the book.

[pt_tangles]

Fair enough ... but I wonder about the jealousy aspect. That was one of the main things that it seemed like Lisa was dealing with especially after they left the island ... she seemed to have decided that she couldn't share Elliot anymore. Isn't that a realistic thing to develop?

--Phae