Thursday's Child by Sonya Hartnett

This is an Australian young adult novel that tells the story of the Flute family as they struggle to survive during the Great Depression. As realistic fiction, it focuses on the relationships and interactions among the family as they live their everyday lives, and it is told through the eyes of Harper, the youngest daughter, who is (I believe) nine when the book begins. As is suitable for her age, she is a bit naive and doesn't seem to completely understand all the events that she describes, and I think this helps to take a bit of the edge off of the setting/context of the novel and some of the particular things that happen to Harper, her siblings, and her parents: her father develops a drinking problem, her older brother runs away, her older sister becomes a housekeeper for a sleazy neighbor, and her younger brother, at the start of the novel, digs tunnels under their house (eventually, through the whole town) and goes feral. It ends on a mostly happy note, one that is satisfying and is subtly led up to throughout the novel. Overall, it's a bit of a quirky little book, and because of this I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

Rating: 3.5/5 for being well-written and engaging, but probably not the kind of thing I'm likely to read again any time soon. (I don't tend to gravitate toward realistic fiction.)

The Valley of Horses by Jean Auel

If you've never read Auel's Earth's Children series, I would highly recommend it (especially if you're into strong female characters). Valley of Horses is the second book, the first sequel to Clan of the Cave Bear. I tried reading VoH last summer immediately after finishing CotCB, but the epic perfection of Clan made it difficult to really enjoy VoH, so I gave up after about a hundred pages. The first 3/5ths of the book are, in fact, quite a snooze fest. Plot wise, chapters alternate between Ayla, the Cro Magnon heroine of Clan, as she forges a new life for herself on her own after she is expelled from the group of Neanderthals by whom she was raised, and two male characters, brothers Jondolan and Thonolan, as they make their way east on a Journey to the end of the great river.
Before the two storylines intersect, there isn't actually much plot, at least as far as the brothers are concerned. Ayla's story is a bit more interesting (she takes in a wild horse and cave lion to raise), but on her own, she isn't quite as intriguing a character. The reason I loved reading her so much in Clan was that she was constantly grappling with her sense of identity and her sense of belonging; she is not of the same sub-species as those around her, and the whole focus of the novel is the various problems that manifest as a result of this, and the ways in which Ayla develops and learns to deal with those problems. Because she is alone for so much of VoH, it was hard for me on a first read to really appreciate her in the same way. As for the Jondolar/Thonolan thread, most of it is taken up not by a driving plot, but by a lot of unnecessary description of the customs of the various clans they encounter, drawn out (and boring) scenes in which things are either built or crafted, and somewhat silly banter and dialogue.
The book doesn't really get good until Jondolar and Ayla meet. Because Ayla was raised by Neanderthals, Jondolar is the first one of her kind that she has seen since her parents died. With another character to play off of, she is once again highlighted as a woman living within and between two very different worlds, both of which she has a hard time fitting into. This is really what I find most interesting about these novels, and it's a shame Auel takes so long to get there in this particular novel. I understand, though, that she wanted to take the time to establish the new characters, particularly Jondolan, and show Ayla as capable of taking care of herself without man nor clan, but I feel like she could have done that in much fewer pages. The last couple hundred pages almost made up for that, though, when Ayla and Jondolan's relationship blossoms and develops.
Rating: 3/5 for very slow start

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

I've owned a copy of this book for a very long time, and had even made a couple (obviously failed) attempts to read it before now. I'm glad I've finally reached a point in my life where it strikes a chord with me, because I found it to be a pretty awesome story. It focuses on Constance (Connie) Chatterley, wife of Clifford Chatterley, a baronet and veteran of the First World War. Clifford was paralyzed from the waist down in service, but he and Connie are able to make the most of it for a while; Connie helps Clifford with his writing (with which he gains a level of success), and she is able to derive a level of satisfaction from that for a time. When that is no longer enough to sustain her needs, she begins an affair with a playwright named Michaelis. Eventually, however, everything in her life begins to feel stale, and this is when she begins a more serious and consequential affair with Oliver Mellors, gamekeeper for the Chatterley estate. It is with Mellors that Connie learns not only true sexual fulfillment, but also what it means to connect with someone on a more meaningful level.

This book was censored in Britain and the U.S. when it first came out for some of the more explicit bits, but it is (luckily) about so much more than just sex. Ideas of mind vs. body, money/class/power, and finding a place within modern society are some of the recurring motifs that weave in and out of the main plot. On this first full read through, though, what I enjoyed the most out of this novel is the way Lawrence uses nature to make sense of all the other strands. The natural setting throughout most of the book is the forest on the Chatterley estate. It is an old bit of forest, described as being from the time of Robin Hood. Although Clifford is technically the owner of the land, nature is actually Mellors' territory, and greater society is Clifford's. Clifford represents the issues of money, class, and power of modern society that Mellors despises and attempts to escape by keeping to himself in this historic bit of nature. Connie, in turn, rejects everything about Clifford in order to pursue a more meaningful existence for herself with Mellors, and it is in nature that she learns to love (not only Mellors, but also herself) and to let herself go. Ultimately, Connie's journey of rediscovering herself is what I derive the most satisfaction from as a reader.

Until now, I've only read some of Lawrence's poetry, but I so enjoyed reading his prose that I'm definitely going to make more of an effort to read his other novels. From what I can deduce, a lot of them are a bit sexy, but hopefully, like in Lady Chatterley's Lover, it's not all smut, but sexiness with a purpose.