I loved Penelope.
I shouldn't have even picked it up really. Its cover is a photo of the back of a (real
life) girl who is surrounded by cartoon animals. Maybe I'm the weird one here but aren't your
least favourite bits of old films when the worlds of cartoons and real life
mix? (Mary Poppins is, of course, the
exception to this rule but even that section drags on a bit) The second thing that meant I shouldn't have
picked up this book is its name - Penelope. Apologies to any Penelopes out there but I've
never really liked the name, maybe I watched too much Wacky Races as a kid and
didn't warm to Penelope Pitstop.
For whatever reason though I picked up the book and I am
so I glad that I did. The novel, written by Rebecca Harrington, is about
Penelope O'Shaughnessy who is starting her freshman year at Harvard and is
really rather awkward. She finds it hard
to make friends and to understand the meanings behind things, sometimes she
acts like a bit of an idiot and is occasionally totally clueless but I still
loved her anyway. She has a unique way
of looking at the world, everything is pretty much black and white for her and
that's what makes Penelope's voice such a funny one.
As the book is set at Harvard the main focuses are
friendship, romance and academia and yes, there are some references to
typically Harvard things so if you get irked by things like that, this book
probably isn't for you. However if you
enjoyed Rory's college years of the Gilmore Girls (I know it was Yale
then and not Harvard but it's still Ivy League) then you'll understand the
setting a little better.
The book is fairly dialogue heavy, just skimming through
it now I can see a lot of speech marks, and it reminded me of a 30s or 40s
book. As I was reading it I thought that
the characters' way of speaking, and the characters themselves, wouldn't have
been out of place in an Evelyn Waugh or Nancy Mitford novel. The author's note at the end of the book
mentioned that Harrington had been inspired by, amongst other things, Waugh's Decline
and Fall and I felt like a right genius after I read that which was nice as in English lessons at school when other
people used to say 'Oh this novel actually reminded me of so and so' and
everyone around them would nod in agreement I felt like a right fraud because I
hadn't seen that influence. So, if you
like that sparky, flowery way of talking that they used in the 20s-40s,
Penelope is the perfect novel for you, it just transplants that way of speaking
into a modern setting.
This book was so good that, although I didn't want to
finish the book, I was looking forward to the ending when I would then be able
to Google Rebecca Harrington to my heart's content. You know when you read someone's writing and
you wish that you were mates with them, that rather than just reading their
tweets you could actually read the texts that they sent you, because you're
mates? That's how I felt about
Rebecca Harrington. She has this way of
writing that I love and I just can't wait for her to release another book.
After I finished the book I did Google away and also did
something I normally do, read the book reviews on UK and US Amazon (only if I
haven't already seen them). Honestly, I
expected enthusiastic praise, other people had to love this book as much as I
did, right? Apparently not, it received
the highest number of one star reviews I've seen for a long time. From what I can work out, people don't seem
to get the humour and the style of writing, they can't stand the fact that
Harrington doesn't use contractions (ie she writes 'can not' instead of can't)
and don't understand that the ficticious characters at the ficticious Harvard
don't have to speak the way that the real people at the real Harvard do. I only mention the one star reviews because I
would hate for someone to have seen them and been put off the book. Penelope is so ridiculously good that
actually, I don't mind the name Penelope all that much now. In fact, I think I
might, maybe, slightly like it.
Buy Penelope at Waterstones
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