Rating: 
Summary: Mixed Feelings
Review: I am a bit confused as to how I feel about this book. I really loved the book as I read it; I became involved in the book and kept trying to find time to read it. Nevertheless, I thought the ending was rather pitiful.Titled for the three sisters in a family, most of this book is a fantastic "day in the life" picture of Gentian. As the story is told we come to know her passion for and habit of doing astronomy, we see love, quirks, and tension in her family, her fasinating group of friends, her personable cat, and her mysterious next door neighbor. Very little actually happens during thie first part of the book, but it is a great story. Gentian exists in a highly intellectual world. From her "open school" classes, to the parties with her friends, to dinner table conversations, Gentian's world is full of literary references, feminist education, and scientific instruction. I fell in love with her world - it is the life that I always wished I had. Despite the great beginning, the story fell apart at the end. I found that part to be poorly written and rushed. Although I was able to see the symbolism and apparent parallels with earlier parts of the book, it all seemed too contrived. I was not convinced by Gentian's journey from strict naturalist to pseudo-supernaturalist. The dichotomy as presented didn't work. Her early naturalism consisted of a hatred of religion (with Christianity being the stereotypical whipping boy), but at the end she accepted Wiccan like magick. The development was not smooth and the result was not credulous. The result comes, I think, from having a really good writer who had great characters, settings and themes, but who couldn't manage to find a decent plot. My suggestion is to read the book because parts of it are great, but just don't expect much from the plot.
Rating: 
Summary: Breathless with Wonder
Review: I am in love with this book. I've been a fan of Pamela Dean from the start, and only become more of one with this novel. Her prose is beautiful, and the closing poem alone quite literally came close to bringing tears to my eyes. I lost myself in the language, and the story, and the way she could evoke a feeling by a simple single turn of phrase. In a way, her prose is the most beautiful when she abandons the literary references for a few pages, and lets her own writing support itself. The referances themselves are pleasant for those well-read enough to identify (or to puzzle over), and by incorporating most of them into one character, and that the antagonist, she is playing with them in a new manner, unlike in her previous books, where everyone inside the story used the words. My one worry regarding them is that Pamela has too little faith in her own prose to risk abandoning them. I hope someday to see a full novel of hers with her prose, bare of literary and musical quotation; she has done it in her short works, and is fully capable of creating a wonderful work there. I do not deny that the book has flaws. Pamela's way of unfolding a plot is not the usual one. She creeps instead like a fox watching prey; minutes of stealth, slow, almost unmoving, then a single instant of leap and capture. I like this, and I find it works for me, yet I am willing to understand that others do not. Likewise, the children seem excessively mature for the ages they are assigned; yet with the exception of Tam Lin, this has been true of all of Pamela's work to date, and within the realm of the story, if not of the real world, it seems reasonable, even normal. My largest complaint is that the girls' parents, otherwise shown as responsible, leave Gentian alone to resolve her own torubles for as long as they do. And yet I'd have been madder at a Deus ex Machina ending, with the parents saving her instead of her saving herself.
Rating: 
Summary: I've read better...
Review: I began reading this book thinking I was reading a true FANTASY. It was very tedious and hard to get into. I believe Dean went into too much detail on the subjects of Shakespeare and astronomy instead of writing an actual book that people could enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: huh?
Review: I just finished it and I'm not sure if I liked it or not to be honest. Well that's a lie. I loved the characters, esp the Giant Ants. Sure they're a little smarter than is fair, but I didn't find it too over the top. However the ending just floored me. I'm not sure if that was in a good way or not. What I'd suggest is to go to a bookstore and skim a paragraph or two at random. If you find the characters compelling, buy this.
Rating:
Summary: huh?
Review: I just finished it and I'm not sure if I liked it or not to be honest. Well that's a lie. I loved the characters, esp the Giant Ants. Sure they're a little smarter than is fair, but I didn't find it too over the top. However the ending just floored me. I'm not sure if that was in a good way or not. What I'd suggest is to go to a bookstore and skim a paragraph or two at random. If you find the characters compelling, buy this.
Rating:
Summary: This one's a keeper
Review: I picked up a paperback copy of this book before going off to a conference in Hungary and then doing a bit of travelling. My usual method is to get a bunch of paperbacks and shed them at youth hostels as I go, lightening my pack(or leaving room for more stuff). Ended up bringing it home with me. The first time I read it I felt like something was missing, like I needed to know more about what was going on. Upon rereading it, I found that feeling was part of the appeal. You don't always need to have all of the loose ends tied up, and there are not all that many books that leave me wanting to know more about the world they describe. Yeah, so the kids are precocious and intelligent, but the story is also told from the point of view of one of the kids, and that's the way a girl would probably see herself. I'd like to give this one 4.5 stars, but the machine only allows for solid stars. Anyway, I'm about to order Tam Lin.
Rating:
Summary: Light-headed
Review: I read this book last weekend and have to say, that while I initially felt as if Ms Dean rushed her ending, left out any explanation of Dominic's motivation, etc., etc., when I finished this book I felt absolutely light-headed. Despite all it's apparently missing elements (which I'm not sure were an accident), Ms Dean has written a very powerful book. It impacts on a level that is difficult, at best, to describe. I thought about the book and its main character for several days. Now that's a good read!
Rating: 
Summary: I wanted to like it.
Review: I really did want to enjoy this book, but I didn't. It had all the flaws of Tam Lin, but less plot and humor. Oh, and yes, it was boring. Yes, I found this book to be lacking in humor. An occasional wry remark or giggle from one of Gentian's friends does not a good book make. I do not mean that I expected some kind of comedy, but all the characters take themselves too seriously. And, of course, they're all one-dimensional. Gentian seems to dislike her sister Juniper immensely, but has no qualms about regularly sneaking and reading her diary. Who is in the wrong there? Also, doesn't anyone notice that Dominic can't seem to speak but in quotes? Sure, a certain amount of quoting is all well and good, but when a person just can't seem to speak any other way, don't you begin to wonder if he is some kind of freak? Gentian also somehow is convinced that he is somehow obsessed by her, but every time he meets one of her friends, he spends most of the time checking that friend out. I did not find Gentian to be a particularly strong, self-reliant heroine. She's as superficial as any of the other people she loves to sneer at. There's a lot of throwaway stuff too-- just what is the point of Dominic being touchy about Alma's race? And that Ouija board episode? That kind of thing did nothing for the characterization or the plot, though I guess it did its job of adding pages to the book. Grrr. Dean is more than a little inconsistent with her quoting. If she expects her readers to have a good deal of familiarity with various writers and poets such as Heinlein Pope and Keats, then why does she basically recap the entire plot of two of Shakespeare's plays-- Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night? It's as if she wanted to give us her own opinion about various characters such as Anthony and Malvolio without actually writing an essay about them. What was the point? Please, tell me.
Rating:
Summary: got knocked unconcious from all the name-dropping.
Review: I think the book averaged about 2 literary references per paragraph. (like stars?) Will look for her next book, though, in hopes it gets closer to this author's obvious potential.
Rating:
Summary: About 250 Pages Too Long
Review: I wondered how the author managed to get enough inspiration from a relatively short ballad to produce a 350 page book. I quickly discovered the answer is tremendous amounts of wholly irrelevant padding. In the first 50 pages of the story, an intriguing mystery is presented. It is thereafter ignored, except for occasional hints that it will be resumed, for the next 200 pages. Even when the author gets back to it, the story plods and plods then, in the last 10 pages, races to an unsatisfactory conclusion although it finally touches on the core of the ballad that supposedly inspired this trite tome. My copy of this book proved to be defective: some 60 pages were missing. Not a problem - the gap made no difference as the story was so stagnant I quickly realised nothing of value had happened in the missing segment. Most of the book is taken up with examining the lives and interrelationships of a group of teenagers so atypically brilliant and carefree they themselves are the most fantastical elements of the book; pity they are also unbelievably dull. About the most interesting thing they do is constantly make literary quotations and cultural references that will go straight over the heads of most young adult readers. Worse, the characters are so unnatural and so tedious they do not inspire a reader to take an interest in the source or meaning of the quotations or references. If this book had been offered to a publisher by an unknown writer as a first work, I have no doubt it would have been deservedly rejected. As it is, this is an astonishing disappointment from an author I know is capable of very interesting work.
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