Now, Voyager

I’ve read it now. It’s lovely. Why do people use “women’s fiction” as a derogatory term?

I was lucky enough not to remember the movie very well when I read the book, so I came to it with only a vague idea of the plot. Not that the movie isn’t good — I went and found it streaming online as soon as I’d finished the book–but the book is better, as books often are.

Now, Voyager is the story of Charlotte Vale — a dumpy, unattractive, unhappy spinster under the thumb of a wealthy and autocratic mother — and her transformation into a well-liked and attractive woman who has a lot to offer, and knows it. First an extremely intelligent psychiatrist shows her how to change, and then a cruise ticket unwanted by its owner gives her the opportunity to do it. Add a weight-reducing illness and her sister-in-law’s cast-off (but still fashionable) wardrobe, and Charlotte has as much of a clean slate as one could realistically expect.

The Glad Books, Part 2

Pollyanna’s Jewels, by Harriet Lummis Smith, is the fourth Glad Book. It follows Pollyanna of the Orange Blossoms, which is also by Smith. Either book three covers at least five years, which I kind of doubt, or Pollyanna’s Jewels skips ahead a few years. It starts with Pollyanna and Jimmy moving to a suburb of Boston with their three kids: Jimmy Junior, who is five or six, Judy, who is probably three, and the baby, who is only ever referred to as “Baby”.