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SETTING: 19th century London, England.
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SUMMARY: Three young men, bored and broke, decide to take on the next adventure that crosses each of their paths.
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FAVORITE QUOTE: "He was younger than the others; and in a somewhat meaningless and altogether English way, he was a handsome lad." - Page 23
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As predicted, school is eating up my life. After averaging a book a week when I was living in Los Angeles and commuting to school, this change to barely making a book a month is sad! Of course, there's no where else I'd rather be blah blah blah, but I do miss reading often. This book was a random pick from the undergraduate library on campus (Finally took a trip there!). It's actually part of a three piece collection of works by Robert Louis Stevenson (RLS), so if my current literature mood stays intact, the next two reviews will be pieces by RLS as well. Since it was my first visit to the undergrad library, I was trying to orient myself and figure out which aisles had my type of books. I was actually hoping to find Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, but they didn't have it :( RLS was right next door, and I remembered liking Treasure Island so I figured I'd give another one of his books a try.
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Things I liked about this book:
- It's super well organized. This book is basically a collection of short stories that are intertwined. It relates the three adventures experienced by the three male protagonists, and does so in a way that I've never seen before. Each friend has an independent adventure, but all three adventures are connected and in a sequential order. The second adventure ties in very neatly with the first, and the third with the first two. RLS definitely mapped this one out well, and I'm definitely not adequately expressing how impressed I was by the organization. Let me make another attempt: I was THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS impressed.
- RLS collaborated with his wife to write this book!
- The ending- the third friend marries the woman who conned the first two.
- Clara Luxmore, the female con artist. She's evil and all, but that woman definitely has some skills in the art of lying and knowing exactly how to play to people's egos, especially men.
- Kind of slow at times. I found my mind wandering and had to reread a few pages.
Thing I found amusing about this book:
- RLS makes the three male protagonists really stupid and naive. I couldn't help but feel sorry for them at times, while other moments left me shaking my head in a slow, pendular motion.
This book was a fun read, but apart from how amazed I was by the way it was organized, it wasn't anything extraordinary. I wasn't particularly hooked to any parts, nor were there any great cliffhangers that made me keep reading. I'd often stop reading the book in the middle of a paragraph, and had no trouble picking up where I had left off. But RLS is an excellent writer, so it was worth the time to read this book.
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Recommend? Yes! Only because I feel like you should read books by RLS. He was good at what he did. Also, he spent his last few years of life in Samoa, and actually put much effort into adopting Samoan culture, which speaks volumes about his personality (Yes, I sometimes pick books based on the fact that I think the author is/was awesome).
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