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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
I enjoyed reading this book and was able to get into it. I enjoyed getting sucked it the time period. I couldn't imagine living the live that she did.
I probably only enjoyed this book two stars, but I recognize that most of that is due to my personal taste and not the actual writing so I'll give it a three. I'm not much a one for frontier novels but this one had some nice moments. The characters were sweet but not sticky. The stories were interesting but I would have appreciated more of an overarching plot rather than several episodes.
This is the second I have read this book. I loved it when I was a teen.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
One of my all time favorite books!
adventurous
reflective
sad
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
The writing was bland. No one came to life for me. Its gory and bleak descriptions of the Canadian frontier were depressing. This review from Goodreads really nailed it for me:
“The book starts off with a 16-year old Boston girl in the 1900's taking the train to the Canadian "Wild West" to live with her uncle. Kate gets to Canada and is told there aren't a lot of women up there because they are "too soft for this land". Kate meets Mike, a Canadian Mounty and falls in love in five seconds at most. They are married a week later and their honeymoon is a 700-mile trek across the frozen tundra that Mike worries will be too harsh for Kate because "This is no place for a women."
She gets sick on the trek and Mike saves her. In the next chapter The wilderness is too much for her and she goes temporarily insane. Luckily, Mike is there to save her.
A fire breaks out and Kate runs for the river along with all the other survivors. In the river she meets a mom with three young babies. Kate takes one. Finally! I think. Kate is growing a backbone! She will do something not-useless. Alas, the river and smoke are too much for her and Mike has to come save her AND the baby.
Kate becomes pregnant and delivers a baby. The pain is too much for and she screams and drifts through consciousness. Mike steps in and saves her and the baby.
It was at this point I threw the book across the room because, surely, women aren't too soft for childbirth.
It's not just the sexism and the overall uselessness of Kate, it's the racism that made me sick to my stomach. When the book says things like "You have to tell them one thing at at time because they can only keep one thing in their head" and that an abused wife stayed with her husband because "that's the Indian way" it really made me ill. Maybe, as a women, I was just too soft for this book.”
If you have not read Mrs. Mike then you are missing out one of the most beautiful and captivating love stories ever written. To read the rest of my thoughts on Mrs. Mike, please visit http://bookreviewsandmorebykathy.com/?p=41
A pretty amazing snapshot of a different era. We all know that "back in the day" young women got married and followed their husbands into the wilderness where they raised families in circumstances it's hard to even imagine.
This is a first hand account of a woman who did exactly that - married a Canadian Mountie at only 16 years and spent the first several years of their married life in rough settlements in the Canadian northwest, primarily among native Americans and a very few other English speaking settlers (or passers by). A matter of fact account of both the joys and hardships of a harsher life than any of us will ever experience, this is an interesting and excellent read.
This is a first hand account of a woman who did exactly that - married a Canadian Mountie at only 16 years and spent the first several years of their married life in rough settlements in the Canadian northwest, primarily among native Americans and a very few other English speaking settlers (or passers by). A matter of fact account of both the joys and hardships of a harsher life than any of us will ever experience, this is an interesting and excellent read.
This was a pick for our book club. How had I never heard of it before??? After finishing it, I read several articles another club member sent me on how popular it has been over the years. When I picked up the old and faded library copy, I had no idea how much I would like it. (Reading about the snowy North during an especially humid country didn't hurt either.)
I was appalled, amused and touched at various points in the story. When the 16 year old Kathy goes off and marries someone she has just met in a place she has just moved to, I thought "Wow, weren't there any adults to keep her from doing that?!?" I know people got married younger then, but it sounds like most people were in their early 20s, not 16!!
But Kathy becomes quite intrepid living through conditions where I wouldn't last a day. I was so tired just lying in my bed reading about all she had to do every day. She was very astute for a teenage girl, and could often understand why she was feeling the way she did.
The way Indians and "half-breeds" are described in the story sounds jarring to our 21st century ears, but I think her point of view was actually quite progressive for both the time period when the book took place and when it was written. She saw these people as fully human, admired them, and made friends with them. The story of why she called one woman Sarah was moving to me, and I am going to have to go back to my Bible to remind myself of the full meaning of that story. At the end when Kathy finally realizes what Constance meant when Kathy first arrived and Constance said they were alike because they were the only two white women there was also moving. Constance wasn't saying the two women were better than the others. She was saying that they could really understand each other because they were the only two women who had experienced other places and still chose to come to this remote outpost.
I was appalled, amused and touched at various points in the story. When the 16 year old Kathy goes off and marries someone she has just met in a place she has just moved to, I thought "Wow, weren't there any adults to keep her from doing that?!?" I know people got married younger then, but it sounds like most people were in their early 20s, not 16!!
But Kathy becomes quite intrepid living through conditions where I wouldn't last a day. I was so tired just lying in my bed reading about all she had to do every day. She was very astute for a teenage girl, and could often understand why she was feeling the way she did.
The way Indians and "half-breeds" are described in the story sounds jarring to our 21st century ears, but I think her point of view was actually quite progressive for both the time period when the book took place and when it was written. She saw these people as fully human, admired them, and made friends with them. The story of why she called one woman Sarah was moving to me, and I am going to have to go back to my Bible to remind myself of the full meaning of that story. At the end when Kathy finally realizes what Constance meant when Kathy first arrived and Constance said they were alike because they were the only two white women there was also moving. Constance wasn't saying the two women were better than the others. She was saying that they could really understand each other because they were the only two women who had experienced other places and still chose to come to this remote outpost.
There is a review glued into the library copy I read and I love it. It says, "Mrs Mike is emotional, unintellectual and refreshing. It doesn't pose any great questions to the reader or offer solutions to life; it is a curiously lyrical solution in itself."
2 stars - Meh. Just ok.
I failed to see why this one is so highly reviewed. For me it read as though each chapter could have been the basis for an episode on a cheesy Hallmark series.
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First Sentence: The worst winter in fifty years, the old Scotsman had told me.
I failed to see why this one is so highly reviewed. For me it read as though each chapter could have been the basis for an episode on a cheesy Hallmark series.
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First Sentence: The worst winter in fifty years, the old Scotsman had told me.