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A review by christinecc
Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken
4.0
I love Aiken's Dido Twite adventures. Aiken always brings the right amount of historical authenticity and vivid world building. Her books make me dive into an alternate Victorian England where James III reigned. This is a world where kids grind carrots into coffee to sell it for cheap on the streets, create bands to help fend for themselves, and live at the mercy of the adults around them. (but give as good as they get). Aiken includes details that lend credence to her world; for instance, some of the street kids pay a small fee to sleep in-doors in a cellar, but specifically to rent a loop of hanging rope from which they can hang their upper body. They sleep with this large noose under their shoulders, their feet dragging on the floor, never quite standing but certainly not lying down, and it's the most respite any of them receive. Aiken doesn't use this for pathetic effect. She just shows the situation as it was and uses it to inform the characters' personalities and decisions.
In this novel, Dido finally confronts the difficult binary of an abusive, horrible person/father and gifted musician. She has trouble reconciling the two, and in fact, she never does. The music is beautiful, and Dido wonders if someday, the music will outlive the memory of her father, leaving only his better part (the music itself and nothing else). It's a moving portrayal of a child who has grown to see the real extent of her father's faults (to say the least) and accepts, with some disappointment, that there was nothing left to salvage in her relationship with her father, regardless of what used to be.
The plot, by the by, will not let you put down the book, and I read this in basically one sitting. I couln't help it, and I loved every moment. I want more of Dido and hope this isn't the end, but if it is, there are plenty of other Aiken books to explore, and many more installments left in the Wolves Chronicles.
Recommended for anyone who enjoys Victorian England fiction, adventures yarns that span London end to end, and royal plots that would make Alexandre Dumas grin and turn the page.
In this novel, Dido finally confronts the difficult binary of an abusive, horrible person/father and gifted musician. She has trouble reconciling the two, and in fact, she never does. The music is beautiful, and Dido wonders if someday, the music will outlive the memory of her father, leaving only his better part (the music itself and nothing else). It's a moving portrayal of a child who has grown to see the real extent of her father's faults (to say the least) and accepts, with some disappointment, that there was nothing left to salvage in her relationship with her father, regardless of what used to be.
The plot, by the by, will not let you put down the book, and I read this in basically one sitting. I couln't help it, and I loved every moment. I want more of Dido and hope this isn't the end, but if it is, there are plenty of other Aiken books to explore, and many more installments left in the Wolves Chronicles.
Recommended for anyone who enjoys Victorian England fiction, adventures yarns that span London end to end, and royal plots that would make Alexandre Dumas grin and turn the page.