read it last year i think, . . i cant' recall all the memories about it ,but i do remember not sleeping all night and reading like paranoid, it was interesting "Honest and heartwarming, comfort read!"
If you could sum up A Little Love Song in three words, what would they be
Love in its complexities
What was one of the most memorable moments of A Little Love Song
Rose's first dance is a hysterical story that will live long after the book as well as her hours in the bookshop.
Which character as performed by Michelle Magorian was your favorite
That's a tricky one, I appreciate Rose's spunk and Alec's sensibility and openness,
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you
Every moment is so honest, you cringe, blush, laugh and love with the characters, you move with them.
Any additional comments
Delicious book, to be served as comfort, It isn't unpredictable or twisty just honest and lovely! Category: Somewhere between YA historical romance and women's fiction
Content: frank discussions of sex, sexuality, petting, semigraphic love scenes
Seventeenyearold Rose is sent to the English seaside village of Salmouth with her older sister Diana for safety during WWII while their actress mother tours with the E.
N. S. A. a British USO. Rose is looking forward to a summer without school and when their chaperone gets called up, a summer without strict rules and the pressure to act a certain way.
She dreams of escaping the shadow of her beautiful older sister Diana, who is not only beautiful but conventional and kindeverything Roe is not, Roe's solace is writing. She longs to put words to paper easily just to express herself, Her new home provides her with plenty of scope for the imagination, especially when she comes across a locked room full of hidden diaries from another woman during a war not so long ago.
Rose relates to the story of "Mad" Miss Hilda, the former owner of the cottage where Rose and Diana now live, With a lovely bookshop and eccentric store owner to provide Rose with books for research, she should have no trouble writing a story, but the desire for her own love story is strong and when a boy named Derry shows an interest in Rose, she is eager to show everyone she isn't a child any longer.
I have mixed feelings about this book, I didn't expect a women's fiction novel starring a "nearly"yearold naive young girl, I was far more interested in the story of "Mad" Hilda, The story broke my heart, I was absolutely appalled at the behavior of her family and Hilda's long nightmare, I'm not sure that was entirely legal, Hilda was a legal adult overand surely could have found a way, My big disappointment was that sometimes Hilda's story was told rather than shown, I couldn't put the book down until I knew what happened to Hilda, We know she's dead but not her history, I found the dual plot a little too carefully constructed to parallel each other, The characters, Hilda, Rose and Dot come from different backgrounds and different times but their stories are a little too similar to be realistically coincidental, I kept waiting for Rose's story to parallel Hilda's more closely, I did appreciate the honest portrayal of teenage sexuality as uncomfortable and unhappy as it made me as a reader, It is very Judy Blume! Is this book banned!
Rose is a difficult character to like, At first she's kind of an annoying teenager, She wants to be rebellious and tries but is too naive to really understand what she's getting herself into, She is a shockingly bad judge of character, My instincts were better than that at her age but she has led a sheltered life whereas modern girls are more aware of things than Rose is, Her character development is so good that by the end of the book I actually liked her, I rooted for her and sympathized with her at the end when she finally had an epiphany and grew up, Her sister Diana is a little too sweet and good for my taste, I did like her character development, although changes came out of the blue and were not subtle, The relationship between the two sisters is complicated like real life sisters and I appreciated that, Dot is strong and brave, I liked how she knew what she wanted and how to get it, I felt awful for her for having such a horrid family, I really liked her plot though there is a little bit of a fantasy element, I could have done without the graphic childbirth scene though,
The men are not quite as appealing as the heroine and her sister, Derry is not at all likable, I loathed him from the very beginning, His cousin, Alec, is much more appealing, A slightly more mature man who owns a bookstore with PTSD, he is more fleshed out than his younger cousin, I liked how open and honest he was with Rose despite that being entirely unrealistic for that generation and how Alec's story shows just how horrendous war is, Derry is still immature and young, He dreams of being a hero and still thinks of war as a fun adventure game, Death is still abstract to him, Alec knows better. As a mature reader, I found him a little more charming than Rose did at first, I loved his passion for books and his friendship with Miss Hilda, However, a coincidence pops up again and is super easy to guess,
The local people are wonderfully quirky! I adored the warm and loving Mrs, Clarence. She is a surrogate mother to Diana, Rose and Dot, never having had daughters of her own, I love how she doesn't hesitate to share what little material goods she has and how she makes up for it with love, The man with the horse and cart who speaks in an unintelligible local dialect is also fantastic, The author really had an eye and ear for village types, I disliked Mr. Partridge, the puffed up lawyer, He represents the patriarchy Hilda rebelled against,
This is a unique story for older teens and adults, I'm not sure I really liked it though, An excellent coming of age novel which covers a wealth of themes related to prejudices of a particular era, A book about WWwhich focuses on what was happening on the home front rather than the war itself while never forgetting the horror of war, Refreshingly simple. Full of detail without feeling didactic, Omläsning. Lånade den här från biblioteket när jag inte riktigt klarade av att läsa så mycket annat än gamla favoriter, Den här är kanske inte lika omskakande nu som när jag läste den första gången, själv tonåring, men den är fortfarande fin.
Nu ser jag andra saker i den, till exempel hur kvinnors kamp för att själva få bestämma över sitt liv går som en röd tråd genom boken men också hur den kommenterar könsrollerna att en man som fått medalj för sina hjältemodiga insatser vid Dunkerque och sedan får ett sammanbrott anses omanlig när han börjar gråta.
Ja, jag läste den annorlunda nu än när jag var jämnårig med Rose, Mitt eget liv har gett mig fler erfarenheter som jag speglar i boken, Nu blir den mindre av en läromästare och mer av en kamrat, This was an absolute favourite of mine as a teenager and I am so glad I decided to revisit it, ALLS is a beautiful, heartwarming book that perfectly encapsulates British summertime by the sea, and keeps the reader gripped to the end, Magorian has written a story that is somehow both lighthearted yet deeply moving providing the reader with a beautiful romance whilst also delving into the deeper topics of posttraumatic stress, unmarried pregnancy and sexual consent in the WWera.
Exploring selfdiscovery and the tricky transition from youth to adulthood, this book is a definite must read, "If that's what love does to you, I'd rather not have anyone fall in love with me, . . not that anyone would "
At seventeen, Rose is convinced no one will ever love her, living as she does in the shadow of her beautiful older sister Diana, If Diana is the swan, Rose is the ugly duckling, But for both girls this is going to be an extraordinary summer,
It isand the war has left its mark even in the sleepy seaside town where the girls have been sent out of harm's way, For the first time in their lives they are free of adult restriction, . .
For both girls it is a summer of selfdiscovery, but especially for Rose who unearths a love story set in another war, a story that becomes more real when she falls in love herself.
. . I LOVE this book I read it first when I was aboutorand I always go back to it, My version is actually called "Not a Swan" so I wasn't sure if this was the book or not, but it is, It is a wonderful book for preteens, but even in my late twenties I still find it a very satisfying read :, Derry was one of the most infuriating characters Ive ever had the displeasure of reading about, Apart from that I loved the book, I can't find an alternative cover to this monstrosity, it's like the publishers found some clip art at random and tried to compile all plot points in the book on the cover.
It's truly horrific. Graphic designers must be haunted by this book, waking up in a cold sweat, murmuring to themselves, . . Never again
At this point I say, definitely don't judge this book by it's cover, and by Goodnight Mr Tom being horrifically sad and scarring British junior school children for life.
I do prefer A Little Love Song to Goodnight Mr Tom, and I would liken this to I Capture the Castle if darker themes were explored in it, I mean if Michelle Magorian didn't write about dark themes in a War Time novel, it'd clearly mean that I had stumbled into a different plain of existence,
Though I would say this novel is still quite lighthearted, with a lot of humour in it, whilst tackling these themes and not ignoring them or skirting round them briefly: this balance between these two themes is skilfully handled by Magorian and I don't think I've seen this too often in books.
Trigger Warnings for: coercion into sex by an awful emotionally manipulative teenage boy, Ick. I still feel the fury, I've been enjoying Ms Magorian's books since I discovered "Goodnight Mister Tom", They seldom disappoint, and this is no exception, The story centers around a'and a/' year old girl during WWII, She and her sisters end up staying in a remote cottage while their mother is away, Some good characters and situations in this book, but should have some notice it isn't for the younger teens as this book has more sexual content that the others of this author that I've read.
Still good read. I seem to come back to A Little Love Song whenever I need comforting and so, it was with no surprise to myself when I found my way back to it recently.
It's a wartime bildungsroman, the story of the summer where everything changes for the central character Rose, Rose and her beautiful sister, Diana, are sent to the seaside town of Salmouth in the care of a guardian whilst their mother goes off to entertain the troups.
It's when the guardian doesn't arrive, the two sisters have to make a vital decision, Do they stay in the supposedly haunted cottage, the home of 'Mad Hilda', or do they go back to their real lives
Michelle Magorian is perhaps better known for sitelinkGood Night, Mr.
Tom and is one of those authors who produces masterpieces every couple of years, A Little Love Song is one of those masterpieces, It's written very quietly the prose is effortless and there's no place
for highdancing metaphors here, It is a story very much concerned with the quiet nature and sheer wonder of life and how people cross and move throughout their stories,
Rose's summer is a delight, a heartbreak, a wistful pageturn, As she discovers more about the previous inhabitant of the cottage the so called 'Mad Hilda' she seems to discover more and more about herself in the process, The development and resolution of Mad Hilda's story is heartbreaking and comes to bear more weight on Rose's life than either she or we ever thought possible,
A Little Love Song is the work of an author who is, I think, often forgotten and shouldn't be, This novel holds the hallmarks of some of her greatest work, the sensitive portrayal of a young individual bordering on adulthood and trying to find their way in the world.
It is a beautiful, beautiful book,/
Finally have my own paperback copy lord this book made me cry, Reading the passages about Mad Hilda's experience in the mental asylum, Felt it so deeply especially as my baby slept beside me, .
I just reread this, Just as beautiful as the last time, And I appreciate the story of Mad Hilda more,
Two sisters Rose and Diana come to Saltmouth during World Warformonths, Their chaperone gets called up so they decide not to tell their mother and keep living by themselves in the old house, previously occupied by a woman "Mad Hilda".
The story centers around Rose or Roe who is nearly, feeling constrained by society and wanting to break out of the mold that her mother and her school want of her.
Her older sister Diana, is the beautiful one, whom she feels she has to compete against, She feels free when she writes,
Saltmouth is like freedom, She meets new friends, discovers a world outside of what people tell her to think, writes stories, finds Mad Hildas diaries, discovers herself, gets manipulated by a shithead, helps give birth and falls in love with a lovely man.
That description is terrible, .
Michelle Magorian has a beautiful way of combining warmth, humor, British wartime, self discovery and heavy topics to make a very readable and touching story,
I'm a pretty wimpy person who hates reading about abuse or manipulation or just horrible reality but she makes it very readable in the few books I have read by her.
Granted it wasnt abuse here, more just plain quite obvious manipulation by a prickhead, But also there was the horrors of mental asylums for unmarried pregnant ladies in Edwardian times in Mad Hilda's diaries, .
I have my favourite passages but I can't bookmark them because this is a library book, needtobuythisbook.
Secure A Little Love Song Depicted By Michelle Magorian Rendered As Manuscript
Michelle Magorian