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    Take a Chance on Me
    Take a Chance on Me
    Take a Chance on Me
    Audiobook10 hours

    Take a Chance on Me

    Written by Susan May Warren

    Narrated by Carol Monda

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Darek Christiansen is almost a dream bachelor-- oldest son in the large Christiansen clan, heir to their historic Evergreen Lake Resort, and doting father. But he' s also wounded and angry since the tragic death of his wife, Felicity. No woman in Deep Haven dares come near. New assistant county attorney Ivy Madison simply doesn' t know any better when she bids on Darek at the charity auction. Nor does she know that when she crafted a plea bargain three years ago to keep Jensen Atwood out of jail and in Deep Haven fulfilling community service, she was releasing the man responsible for Felicity' s death. All Ivy knows is that the Christiansens feel like the family she' s always longed for. And once she gets past Darek' s tough exterior, she finds a man she could spend the rest of her life with. Which scares her almost as much as Darek learning of her involvement in his wife' s case. Caught between new love and old grudges, Darek must decide if he can set aside the past for a future with Ivy-- a future more and more at risk as an approaching wildfire threatens to wipe out the Christiansen resort and Deep Haven itself.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateAug 2, 2013
    ISBN9781501992377
    Take a Chance on Me
    Author

    Susan May Warren

    Susan May Warren is the USA Today bestselling, Christy, Carol and RITA award–winning author of more than sixty novels whose compelling plots and unforgettable characters have won acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. In addition to her writing, Susan is a nationally acclaimed writing teacher and runs an academy for writers, Novel.Academy. For exciting updates on her new releases, previous books, and more, visit her website at www.susanmaywarren.com

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    Reviews for Take a Chance on Me

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    • 5/5
      With neither friend nor family to turn to, Lucy Snowe leaves England (it would be easy to say ‘is forced by reduced circumstance’, but her character is capable of more than passive decision) with the slightest notion of employment in the fictional (Belgian?) town of Villette. Quickly dealing with practical concerns, and taking a position in a school, her story is a study of the pain of unrequited love, but also an acknowledgement (even a small celebration of the fact) that a woman’s life is not nothing if she cannot have the man she loves.I liked this story very much; for all it’s sadness it was encouraging, for all it’s teasing it was practical. Lucy Snowe may be the best character of romantic period fiction I have ever encountered. Despite a weaker plot-line, she presents as much wiser than Ms. Eyre, she (or, rather, Ms. Brontë) portrays her colleagues and friends with a searching and pragmatic eye, kinder than fierce, but responsive to instinct. The psychology and inner life of Miss Lucy Snowe is the more important aspect of the story.Through Miss Snowe we are introduced to M. Paul Emmanuel. Forget the perfect, benign Dr. Bretton for whom Lucy first harbours a strong admiration; although I loved his dialogue, wildly adored his mother and enjoyed his affection for Lucy, and laughed at his preferences first for Miss Farnshaw and then Miss ‘Polly’, I read the book with a strong preference for the ‘small tyrant’, the dictatorial professor who challenges and rails at the Female English Protestant at every turn. Charlotte Bronte obviously enjoyed writing this character, because he jumps off every page and (even when speaking French, thereby making me check the notes on the text at the end of the book frequently, to ensure I hadn’t missed any nuance of conversation) whips up a delight in acquaintanceship, perfectly communicated through Miss Snowe to the reader. He is, in fact, a hoot, even before he emerges as a warm contender for Lucy’s romantic consideration.*****spoiler warning*****As with an earlier passage where Lucy suggests the reader imagine intervening years between text tranquil and trouble-free, if they prefer, so we know that the ‘open’ ending does not see Lucy finally settled with her heart’s hope… not merely because of her mildly unreliable narrator’s trait, but because Miss Brontë, having settled on a tragic ending, was encouraged by her father and publisher to allow a gentler final paragraph. The author’s intentions are clear; the storm has rolled in, Lucy’s happiness must light on the love she has been shown, and her improved position (not small things). Despite this tendency to believe the morbid turn, I think the story is still ultimately a glad one ‘There. I have been loved’ Lucy seems to say. The reader, now knowing her well, understands that she will not perish from depression, though she might be sorely afflicted by it, that she will do nothing less than honour the memory of the fantastic, fiery Prof. M. Paul Emmanuel.
    • 4/5
      This was an excellent read and it was extremely useful to have the references and background information. I read it alongside the BBC adaptation which was an equally excellent adaptation. Set in 1853 with Lucy Snow as the central character we follow her life and learn of her passion, her love and life. So often the prose propelled me to re-read and savour a section time and again as we gained further insights into the character. I loved the reflective writing as we read of how Lucy muses "I shall share no man's or woman's life in this world, as you understand sharing. I think I have one friend of my own, but am not sure; and till I am sure, I live solitary." "But solitude is sadness." "Yes; it is sadness. Life, however, has worse than that. Deeper than melancholy, lies heartbreak."In many ways I felt she was a lady way ahead of her times - along with the setting in both France and Belgium and the education theme this was always going to be a pleasure for me. I was not disappointed and thoroughly recommend this wonderful work.
    • 4/5
      Very passionate and convincing, this work is rather powerful and sad. I could relate very well to the heroine.
    • 3/5
      I found it a rather slow read. Parts were in untranslated French, which I couldn't understand. Other than going off to Vilette Lucy was very passive. She just watched what was going on around her. Because she held so much back it was hard to care about her. Her romance with M. Paul seemed jarring. Suddenly once he is leaving she loves him. Up till than it didn't seem like she even really liked him and he wasn't very likeable.
    • 5/5
      Jane Eyre will forever surpass all Bronte novels, in my mind. But this, this, is a beautiful novel.
    • 2/5
      After a copy appeared on my shelves (I'm sure without specific intent on my part), I decided to read Villette as part of the '1001 Project'. Mostly I don't regret the often seemingly interminable effort, but it was rarely enjoyable.Charlotte Bronte and her sisters were masters of melodrama. Villette is a clear example. Haworth in Yorkshire (where the Brontes spent many of their formative years) is a bleak and uninspiring place, so it's no surprise that the girls turned out to be sociopathic and self-absorbed. This is apparent in the pages of Villette, which is reportedly thinly-veiled autobiography.The narrator is sullen, passive, taciturn and uninteresting. The only thing more unlikely than Lucy Snowe falling for the pompous and emotionally unstable M. Paul Emanuel is that he should fall for her. In fact, none of the characters we encounter are in any way endearing. Perhaps Dr John has noble qualities, but his obsession with the flaky and manipulative Ginevra Fanshawe (surely one of the most blatantly contrived names in English literature) is reprehensible and unforgiveable.However, the novel is rescued from total derision by the rich and sparkling language: "On summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone; on summer evenings, to linger solitary, to keep tryst with the rising moon, or taste one kiss of the evening breeze, or fancy rather than feel the freshness of dew descending", or "I held in my hand a morsel of real solid joy : not a dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy chances imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot live". It is rare delights such as these that make the book worth persevering with. Almost.
    • 4/5
      The plot was full of rather unbelievable chance encounters and re-encounters, descriptions were slow to very slow. The character studies, however, were flawless.
    • 3/5
      Interesting to read the author's semi-autobiographical novel. The main character, Lucy Snowe, was such a contrast with Jane Eyre, her more famous literary "sister"; the latter was more straightforward and open. Lucy was closed-in, emotionally stunted, and self-critical, introverted. In the days where women were appendages of their fathers and husbands, Lucy made her own way herself and a life for herself as a schoolteacher in the town of Villette [i.e., Brussels]. The story follows her life at Mme. Beck's school, where she teaches English, and follows her relationships with others and several romances. The novel tries to be a gothic, with the appearance of a spectral nun, who had connection with Mme. Beck's. The book is uneven; some parts drag and others fly by.
    • 5/5
      The first time I read this book I was seventeen. Frankly I was disappointed then. I had such high expectations because some people had said that it was better than _Jane Eyre_. It was dark and at that time I was struggling with depression, so the summer vacation chapter affected me severely. Lucy was also so cold. I couldn't like her or understand her. Also not a whole lot seemed to happen. It seemed anti-climactic.A year ago I decided to read it again from a more intellectual standpoint. I loved it.I was swept away. I could now understand Lucy. While she was quiet she was certainly passionate, but I was too young to see it the first time. I feel for Lucy. Brontë's was much more subtle in this work. It was now fun to watch her. I can never love Lucy as I love Jane, but I like her and can understand her. At seventeen I was not mature enough to appriecate _Villette_. This book speaks to the more mature reader. So you young-Jane-obsessed things, wait. Wait on _Villette_ if you can. She will have much to say to you in just a few years.
    • 4/5
      Usually upon finishing a book if I have clearly defined feelings for it either way, those feelings shall become muted over time and I will forget the initial burst of emotion which created such an opinion. I have to say that this is far from being the case with Villette. This being my first book by Charlotte (no, I haven't read Jane Eyre yet), I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Having read Austen and found it incredibly dreary, repetitive and passionless, I was concerned that perhaps this owed a certain amount to the socialisation of the period and would have Charlotte be the same. Having read Villette, I have since discovered that her opinion of Austen was much the same as my own.The story follows Lucy Snowe as she struggles to find her feet after becoming all but destitute. She bravely decides to move to the continent to try to find work there and eventually becomes an English teacher at a girl's school. The reader is taken into Miss Snowe's confidence, learning of her loneliness, her joy, her hopes, her disappointments. We watch the shifting fortunes of those close to Lucy, and I found that far from Austen's entirely predictable story lines, I really did not know what was going to happen in the end to most of the characters. These are complex people as opposed to two-dimensional moral examples. Lucy occasionally behaves in an unreasonable way, yet I would always find myself empathising, chuckling and believing I would most probably have reacted in exactly the same way. This, I believe, was the ultimate charm of Villette: believable, warm, or even intensely irritating characters who were wonderfully fleshed out and brought to life. Lucy Snowe is as strong a female character as you would ever be likely to find in most modern fiction, and this delighted me. Her dry, witty commentary on unfolding events always made me laugh and by the end of the story I felt I had made a dear friend. I may not have yet read Jane Eyre, but believe me, I soon will.
    • 1/5
      I read where Villette was the ruination of Charlotte Bronte's career, and I can understand why. The story is disjointed and difficult to follow. It may be difficult to follow if one doesn't know a great deal of conversational French, as entire paragraphs are written in French. Just terrible!
    • 3/5
      I wasn't sure about this - there didn't seem to be much of a story although it was an abridged audio. The relationship between Lucy Snowe and the other professor seemed to come from nowhere and like other readers the end seemed odd. I love Jane Eyre but this was disappointing.
    • 4/5
      Who said the only good novel by Brontë was Jane Eyre? This one has more into it that our timeless heroine, some say it's a biographical book, and if it is...Charlotte I admire you even more than before!
    • 4/5
      1853 wird Charlotte Brontes Roman Villette veröffentlicht. Das Leben der Autorin ist selbst tragisch genug und würde wohl auch Stoff für einen Roman abgeben.In Vilette geht es um Lucy Snowe, eine alleinstehende junge Frau , die in einer Schule im französischen Villette als Lehrerin arbeitet. Das Buch wirft die Frage auf, wie man damals als Frau unabhängig leben kann - es werden mehrere Lebensentwürfe vorgestellt, die verwitwete Schulleiterin als selbständige Frau, die kokette Ginevra als eitle, oberflächliche Frau. Lucy selbst schafft es, unabhängig zu leben - trotz tiefer Gefühle geht sie keine Beziehung ein.Ich fand das Buch interessant, gerade auch aus der Zeit heraus, hatte aber schon manchmal Schwierigkeiten am Ball zu bleiben.Charlotte Bronte's novel Villette was published in the year 1853. The life of the author herself is tragic enough and would also give room for a novel."Villette" is about Lucy Snowe, a young woman who works in a school in the French Villette as a teacher. The book raises the question if it is possible to live independently as a woman at that time - several concepts of life are presented: the widowed headmistress as an independent woman, the coquettish Ginevra as vain, superficial woman. Lucy even manages to live independently - in spite of deeper feelings she does not take any relationship.I found the book interesting, especially as a document of that time.
    • 4/5
      Lucy Snowe, adrift in her life in England, travels abroad to French-speaking Villette, and becomes a teacher.On wiki it says that in Villette (apparently modelled on Brussels), Lucy is "drawn into adventure and romance." This is an exaggeration. For pretty much all of its 650 pages, basically nothing happens in this book. Lucy has some fairly minor ups and downs in her life, and is associated with people who are in much the same boat. It is a report on a mundane life among mundane lives. And yet it's excellent. It's incredibly well observed psychologically, and really creeps up on you. In a largely eventless, plotless book, with an entirely passive narrator, the little ups and downs become as all consuming for the reader as they do for the character. I'm not quite sure how Bronte pulls it off, but it's very good indeed. Loved the ending, too.One note - some of the dialogue is in French, so if (like me), you don't speak it, get an edition (unlike me) that translates it.
    • 4/5
      I'm a big fan of Jane Eyre, so this had been on my to-read list for a while. I'm glad I finally picked it up! I liked that the novel dwells so much on friendships; ultimately the romantic elements feel a bit like an afterthought or obligation, which is fairly unique for a novel from this time period.
    • 3/5
      SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THIS REVIEWTL;DR: There are a few things I liked about this book, but overall, to me, this is an instance where changing times and mores have rendered earlier centuries’ attitudes too distasteful to be ignored. I liked the main character. Miss Snowe is clever, resourceful, and knows what she wants (even if her ambitions are low). Her snarkiness plays a big role in her charm. She’s a wonderfully complex character. There were enough interesting musings and general bird’s-eye views on life mixed in with the text, too. It drags in places, but overall the narrative maintains a pleasant momentum. However. The attitudes espoused in the book and held up by the characters as “how things ought to be” I found too distasteful to overlook: there’s aggressive patriarchal abuse, there’s sanctimonious posturing with religious credentials, and there’s colonial-style racism aplenty. They may make the text a rich field to explore intellectually, but they annoyed much of the reading pleasure out of me. First, there’s the gender issues. Viewed as a romance novel, Villette presents the main character, introverted expat teacher Lucy Snowe, with the choice between two love interests. One is an ideal (English)man, whose ideal spouse is one who is his intellectual partner. And on the other hand there is M. Emanuel, a domineering, exacting brute with frightening anger management issues and temper tantrums, who will not tolerate contradiction or even imagined disobedience. His ideal woman is one who obeys him absolutely (an arch eyebrow will trigger a “know your place, woman” speech), who immerses herself in him, lives up to his exacting yet unspoken standards, and who successfully navigates his moving-the-goalposts scrutiny. Spoiler: This is the one Miss Snowe ends up choosing.Brontë “redeems” M. Emanuel in true battered-woman form: his exactitude, tyranny and temper tantrums merely stem from genuine, full-on passion and honesty, dontcha see? That’s just who he is. Also, he’s been hurt before: doesn’t that earn him indulgence and compassion? That time he scolded her for wearing clothes that weren’t mouse-grey and wildly (and knowingly) exaggerated their showiness because even a mild “transgression” is a transgression? That’s not domineering, it just shows you he cares. His constantly lording his academic superiority over her, well he only means the best for her, and his expectations are high! Don’t you see that he needs to test her, to be sure she’ll live up to his standards? It’s for her own good. Really, he means well. That time he showed her some much-needed affection and then went completely incommunicado for two weeks, well, that was necessary because he was preparing a surprise, and he would not be able to keep it from her if she subjected him to her sincere and irresistible feminine questions. So you see, it really was her own fault. Also, her emotional despair during the interval is irrelevant, this really was about his emotions.Lucy Snowe (and the reader) is not to notice the systematic pattern of denigration and abuse. We are invited to see him as a poor, suffering victim who needs fixing by a special woman who can see the real person underneath the abuse and tyranny. This is where the religious hypocrisy comes in: M. Emanuel is, after all, a very pious man -- surely that will vouch for his decency?Much is made of Emanuel’s strongly held Roman Catholicism: to illustrate that, it is revealed that he has been spending his last twenty years in self-imposed mortification, near-poverty and deprivation, in order to benefit people who kinda sorta wronged him. Brontë presents that as laudable and redeem-worthy because isn’t he just sooo pious? I thought it was merely perverse, a case of ostentatious and downright pathological Catholic guilt taken to extremes. Especially because the revelation about his mortification is presented to the reader as an invitation to reconsider the quality of his character: it takes principles and lofty morality and strength of resolve to commit to this course of action. Well, no. To me, this turns the whole affair into a case of ostentatious flagellation, designed to trigger goodwill: showy Catholic suffering used as emotional manipulation while pretending to high morality. Somebody is suffering beyond necessity; therefore the issue deep and admirable and worthwhile. No, it really, really isn’t. (It is true that it is Brontë who sets it up like this, but in-universe it is M. Emanuel who expects the revelation to change Miss Snowe’s opinion of him, too.)And finally, there is the racism. The main cast consists mostly of smug, impossibly arrogant English expats looking down on both the locals and the immigrants -- except other Englishmen, and the occasional Frenchman, who, after all, represents a prestigious and long-standing High Culture. They are so smug they do not realize they are immigrants too -- and do not realize their smugness. The native people of Labassecour/Belgium are generally described as too rural, ugly and stupid to merit any interest, except for a few of the ones who’ve mastered enough French to not sound like a local. Anyone who’s worth noticing is either a French or an English expat/immigrant; even the indigenous royalty, nobility and bourgeoisie is dismissed haughtily, not to be taken seriously as company or one’s intellectual equals. (Disclaimer: I myself am Belgian.)It’s not as though these issues are mainly located in the background as (well, the racism is, usually): the patriarchal abuse is held up front and center, and the main focus of the book, and this made it too hard for me to give the book the benefit of the doubt. The fact that pretentious religious posturing is presented as a redeeming factor did not help.
    • 4/5
      I've had this book on my shelves for years, and I finally plowed through it. It took almost four weeks, which is a long time in book years, for me, anyway. I just had such a hard time getting into the protagonist's head for the first three-quarters of it or so, and I disliked most of the members of the "supporting cast", with one exception, that being Mrs. Bretton. Finally, however, Lucy Snowe really clicked for me, and the rest of the book was quite enjoyable. It wasn't Jane Eyre, but on the strength of those chapters the book was able to stand alone on its own merits for me. I was touched by the growing relationship between Lucy and the man she loved; I was glad to see some of the uselessly annoying characters come to have a raison d'être before the last page. I won't mention the one thing that really bothered me about the story, even after I really began to enjoy it, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but if it weren't for that one thing I'd probably have given this book a better rating.
    • 5/5
      "These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good. They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that turn which Reason approves, and which Feeling, perhaps, too often opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life, and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall. As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: take it to your Maker--show him the secrets of the spirit He gave--ask him how you are to bear the pains He has appointed--kneel in His presence, and pray with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for patience in extreme need. Certainly at some hour, though perhaps not your hour, the waiting water will stir; in some shape, though perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for which it bled, the healing herald will descend. The cripple and the blind, and the dumb, and the possessed, will be led to bathe. Herald, come quickly! Thousands lie round the pool, weeping and despairing, to see it, through slow years, stagnant. Long are 'times' of Heaven: the orbits of angel messengers seem wide to mortal vision; they may en-ring ages: the cycle of one departure and return may clasp unnumbered generations; and dust, kindling to brief suffering life, and, through pain, passing back to dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again, and yet again. To how many maimed and mourning millions is the first and sole angel visitant, him easterns call Azrael."Language and philosophy like this is what is to be found in this magnificent novel.I found myself cussing a lot when reading this book. It got more severe as the story snowballed to it's end. Not in a bad way, you know, but it had me hook, line, and sinker, and my feelings were toyed with and yo-yo-ed about. I didn't want this book to end. You should read it, savor it slowly, translate the French as you go, it's worth it.Lucy Snowe is maddening. She is her own worst enemy. If there were ever a case for manifesting one's destiny - well, I mean, was she cursed, or did she curse herself? "the negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know." I think there's an argument for both. It occurred to me that for all her haranguing of Ginevra, really they weren't so different. They both craved attention and security and approbation, but in dissimilar ways. At least Ginevra was open about it, while Lucy was utterly incapable of making her needs known. It reminded me that it takes one to know one. Lucy, at one point (though briefly), begins to think of Ginevra as a heroine, and I think I understand why. She would never have traded places with her but I think she must have secretly admired her gumption. Lucy doesn't hate people. She has an utterly astounding font of patience and keen observation and forbearance for people behaving badly, people behaving thoughtlessly, people's innate self-centeredness, she forgives it all. She's no picnic either. She'd like to be that disinterested, unfeeling, untouchable, cold observer of people. But lordy, she's so far from effecting that and she only half knows it.
    • 5/5
      Considered Charlotte Brontë's most autobiographical novel, Villette follows the story of Lucy Snow, perhaps one of the most self-contained heroines in all of nineteenth-century literature. Penniless and alone in the world, Lucy pursues her fortune abroad, teaching at a girls' school in the French city of Villette. Her experiences there, her encounters with both her fellow countrymen and the French natives of the city in which she has settled, and the relations she forms with her colleagues and students, are all chronicled in this gradually unfolding character study.Readers expecting something more along the lines of Jane Eyre, with its strong narrative flow, will be somewhat disappointed, I believe. Villette is a far more cerebral text, less plot-driven than is it character-centric. This has both advantages and disadvantages, in that it allows Brontë to plumb the psychological depths of her heroine in a way not seen in her earlier work, but also causes the story to drag somewhat, especially in the middle sections. Highly principled, somewhat prejudiced, and terribly lonely, Lucy Snow has always struck me as a flawed, more human version of Jane Eyre. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say that she is what Jane would be, in the absence of hope. Her unrequited (possibly?) love for M. Paul, who is himself a deeply flawed individual, has something of the strength of despair in it at times, and the novel in general has a darker tone.As an aside, I should mention that Villette has numerous, and sometimes extensive, passages in French. The reader who is unacquainted with that language would do well to obtain a version in which translations are given in the rear notes.
    • 5/5
      Why on God's green earth does everyone read Jane Eyre, but not this amazing book?
    • 4/5
      "I seemed to hold two lives--the life of thought, and that of
      reality; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter."

      Lucy Snowe, the book's heroine, has good common sense, steely nerves, and no protectors. Not for her the life of a hothouse bloom--she must fend for herself from an early age. After the old woman she works for dies, she is left homeless and without friends or family to appeal to. On the spur of the moment, she uses her small store of money to go to France, and thence, to the little town of Villete. There, she lucks into a position at a ladies' school, headed by the strong-minded, light-moraled Madame Beck.

      Bronte made a few choices I didn't like. The book is almost comically prejudiced against "popery" and foreigners in general. The paragraphs upon paragraphs of how beautiful, dainty, feminine, delicate-minded, etc. Polly is seem to last forever. And I'm still not sure why Bronte had a nun haunt the school (I assumed it was to A) remind us of Lucy's repression and B)fufill the need for sensationalism), only to explain away the spectre in a sneering aside.

      My problems aside, I enjoyed this book, mostly because I loved Lucy so much. She has a low opinion of herself but very high standards, is often depressed but refuses to be ruled by her darker moments, is thoughtful and introverted. She is, overall, someone I'd very much like to meet. Although she has a keen eye and recognizes her friends' faults, she never turns her incisive wit against them. After her love becomes disillusioned with his own paramour, the frivolous, selfish Ginevra, he denounces her to Lucy. Lucy points out that as mercenary as Ginevra is (as she warned him at the start), she has many good qualities; Lucy doesn't sound like a goody-two-shoes, but rather a girl defending her friend. Bronte writes friendships very well and very realistically, and these relationships, along with Lucy's engaging personality, are the backbone of the novel.
    • 3/5
       I liked this book in the beginning: the set up, getting familiar with the characters, etc. Then all the characters except the narrator abruptly dissapeared.That would be fine except for the fact that the author had really given me no reason at all to care about the narrator up to this point. In fact, I thought that another character named Polly was the one that we were supposed to focus on (I also liked her best). For me, a huge part of any book is the characters, especially the main character. If I don’t like the main character, the book is basically sunk. In this case, I didn’t care about the main character, perhaps because there was so little revealed about her.It got a little better once I adjusted, but it didn’t really pick up for me until the last 50 or so pages, at which point I found it difficult to put the book down. So that’s good, but I’m not sure that those 50 pages can entirely make up for the fact that the plot was SO SLOW to develop. I wasn't even sure what the real plot was supposed to be until I was more than halfway through the book.It probably also didn’t help that I didn’t particularly care for a certain character that I’m sure I was supposed to like by the end. Nor did it help that I can’t speak a word of French (little bits of it pop up frequently, usually in dialogue). And it especially didn’t help that my dislike of the main character was exacerbated when she started acting ethnocentric, putting forth a somewhat stereotypical view of the French and taking quite a few jabs at Catholicism throughout.
    • 5/5
      Initially, I almost gave up on this story. It was slow for a while. Once it really got started, I was enthralled. It really tugged at my heart strings. The anger and grieving ultimately became gaining the strength to forgive, let go, and ultimately live life to the fullest. It became a battle of survival in more ways than one and embracing not only what's most important, but also each other in a time of need. By the end, my heart was filled with warmth.
    • 3/5
      I was surprised that I liked this one.
    • 5/5
      Lucy Snow, the star-crossed narrator of Villette, is a destitute, lonely, and intelligent young woman who ventures into a vaguely sinister francophone country in order to find work and forge some of the thickest emotional armor in British literature. She is also a devious and unapologetic liar. You can never escape Lucy’s mind, but neither can you trust it. This result is an intense story that simmers just below the boiling point. But what saves the book from turning into an overheated psychological chessgame is the inexorable, heartbreaking, and yet ultimately redeeming need for love. Indeed, it contains one of the most passionate romances ever written. How to find love without letting others, including the loved one, manipulate and exploit our need for love? How to write a novel that is searlingly emotional without being sentimental or melodramatic? That is Charlotte Bronte’s achievement, and Lucy’s painful but necessary defensive maneuvers taught me how to survive some of the more bleak periods in my life.
    • 5/5
      [Villette] by Charlotte BronteIt is hard to believe that Villette was published in 1853 and yet its style is so very reminiscent of its era. It reads like a Victorian novel but one with hardly any plot to speak of, there are ghosts, there are love stories, there are strict manners and men rule the world, but we see this through the eyes of Lucy Snowe a very unlikely hero. It is a psychological study first and foremost but one in which the protagonist thinks and acts according to the proscribed values of the world in which she lives. It is the psychological aspect and the unremarkable story line that seems to portend towards modernism, but Bronte’s writing locks it firmly in the world of the Victorian novel.Lucy Snowe as an unmarried women without any prospects must work for her living. She is not particularly attractive and so without good looks or money she has little to offer on the marriage market, especially at a time when there were far more young women than men in the world. She has just enough money to seek her fortune on the continent and has some luck in finding a place as an assistant in a girls school in the country of Labassecoeur. Labassecour to all intents and purposes is France and I would imagine that Bronte made it an imaginary country because of the anti-French feel of much of her novel. A major theme of the novel is how hard work, diligence and knowing ones place in society is essential for an unmarried woman to survive. Lucy is quiet and undemonstrative on the surface with an iron will that keeps her feelings in check, but inside her head which is where most of the story takes place she is both vulnerable and passionate. She does not allow herself to fall in love and yet her inner feelings are centred on two extraordinary men and we follow her hopes her desires and her confusion as she tries to come to terms with her feelings and her position in society. It is a novel where we have to rely on other peoples observations of Lucy Snowe to get a more balanced picture. Lucy herself is not so much unreliable as perplexed in her thoughts and as she is telling her story in the first person then the reader must sift the evidence. Bronte’s point in presenting such a character is to demonstrate how difficult it was for a woman to make her way in such a closed (to her) society. How should an intelligent woman come to terms with her situation? Paulina a childhood friend says of Lucy: “Lucy I wonder if anybody will comprehend you all together”and:M Paul to Lucy “You want so much checking, regulating, and keeping down” This idea of keeping down never left M Pauls head; the most habitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of it.Here is the rub because not only must Lucy keep her vulnerability and passions in check she must also keep her rebellious spirit from surfacing too often. Those people who know her best perceive this in her as do the readers who are privy to her thoughts and her occasional outspoken and prickly comments to others.Bronte was able to develop other themes through Lucy that were topical at her time of writing. I have already mentioned the anti French feeling, but this is also entwined with an inbuilt anti-catholicism. Lucy is fiercely protestant and finds herself living and working in a catholic school and falling in love with a catholic man. It is no accident that the school in which she works is run a little like a police state with Madame Beck keeping her pupils and teachers under constant surveillance. M Paul also boasts of how he spies on all the pupils and teachers and this is likened to the catholic religion that is seen as one of control and manipulation of peoples souls. Lucy must rebel against this, but she needs to use all her resources so as not to fall foul of the system. Bronte’s metaphor for a troubled mind is a storm, sometimes a storm at sea and these always precipitate a major event in Lucy’s life. M Paul’s character is perceived as stormy and at the end of the novel it is a storm that represents a slightly ambiguous ending. Bronte’s writing here and in the ghost scenes is most representative of what we have come to know as Victorian gothic. However it is the exploration of the thoughts and feelings of Lucy Snowe that takes this novel out of the general run of novels of it’s time. It is insightful, it is thought provoking, it is not perfect as one imagines a novel should be, but it is one of those books that I look forward to re-reading. 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      Although Charlotte Bronte is probably best known for Jane Eyre, many people consider Villette her best novel. There are definitely many similarities between the two. The heroine of Villette, Lucy Snowe is also an orphan who shares many of Jane's best qualities - she's intelligent, fiercely independent, and self-reliant. After having a difficult life in England, Lucy goes to France to teach English at a boarding school. Much of the plot of the novel is similar to Jane Eyre - Lucy works hard against difficult odds, she falls in love with a man, who comes across as rude and difficult initially, and there is even a bit of gothic mystery with possible sightings of the ghost of a murdered nun. But how these two stories differ is in the inner characteristics of the two heroines. Jane is upbeat and confident and never shows a bit of weakness. Whereas Lucy, on the exterior, appears strong and confident, much of the story revolves around Lucy's sadness and depression over her life - being alone and unloved. The writing of the story is excellent and the mood is often dark and somber. Although this may be a better written novel, the mood is often morose and dark.
    • 3/5
      This story went on and on and on. For the most part it was a very slow read- I wasn't into the characters, not much happened for a long time, and, it just kept going for 556 pages! Lucy Snowe almost never stands up for herself, and I was rather frustrated with her early relationship with M. Paul. That got better at the very end, but still... Things took a long time to come together, and I have to admit that I chastised her many times for her inaction. I was also highly disturbed by the ending- this story is supposed to be somewhat autobiographical, which makes me wonder how that related to her biography. I kept wanting to change Lucy's actions- to make her stand up for herself, to explain things to her, to remind her that she is not some sort of worthless slug or something. So was Charlotte Bronte completely miserable during this period of her life? Don't read this if you expect something light or enjoyable...
    • 5/5
      I was suprised by how much I loved this book. I haven't (gasp) read Jane Eyre, so I wasn't sure what to expect from Bronte, except that it might be a bit of a slog since it is 19th-century British literature.The main character, Lucy Snowe, is a hard nut to crack, but once I started to appreciate her tone and manner of describing people and situations, I soon began to see what a passionate and admirable person was underneath the staid and proper exterior that was presented. For a book written in 1853, Lucy Snowe is ages ahead of her time -- a single woman working to support herself in the world without the assistance of a husband or family. She is brave and smart, and you end up rooting for her right through to the end.I loved this passage: "Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden - large, considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection at this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to certain scenes an influence so softening; and where all is stone around, blank wall and hot pavement, how precious seems one shrub, how lovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground!"Lovely, lovely book. Also, it makes me want to brush up on my French.