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Saturday, November 26, 2011

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge





Published 1946
ISBN 9780142300275
Series? No
Rating: PG
BUY / Nook / Kindle



In 1842, newly orphaned Maria Merryweather, her governess, and dog arrive at her ancestral home in an enchanted village in England's West Country where the people's bliss is marred by a dark shadow.






I searched for this book after I watched the movie The Secret of Moonacre. I really liked that movie but I felt that they had left out some important information and when I found out that the movie was based on a book I was very excited. I never knew that this book was J. K. Rolling's favorite book as a child and even if I had I probably would not have read it without watching the movie first. The sad part is that I probably would not have watched the movie if I had read the book first.

I have nothing against the cover. In fact I actually like the cover a lot. There is a unicorn on it and so it slightly makes up for the fact that there is no actual real life unicorn in the book. Barely.

The main character, Maria, is a pain in the butt. Things come so easy for her and while that can sometimes make the story more interesting I felt that this quality just worked against the book. Maria did not really have much of a personality which I found was not a very rare quality for any of the characters of this book.

Robin was a huge disappointment. I liked how they had him on the opposite side of the family feud in the movie. He was just all around awesome in the movie version. He was also really cute there and there was a bit of a bad-guy-turned-good-guy vibe with him. It worked for him. In the book he had more of a flying monkey feel to him.

The Old Parson freaked me out. He went door to door stealing the children for the morning because he felt that they were a bother to their parents. How would he know that? I would have been pissed beyond reason if the local priest thought that it was okay to come to my home and take my children to hang out at the church with him for a few hours. For some reason none of the reviews that I have read had anything about him in their reviews and yet because of the fact that it was the arrival of him that stopped me from enjoying the book I feel that including him is very important.

Speaking of religion, this book was a walking religious pamphlet. All of the 'evil' characters are atheist and as an atheist I was extremely insulted. I felt pelted  with sermons on every page and it went a long way for me to really resent this book. I don't mind some religion in a book but if I start to feel that the authors religion is being forced down my throat as the only 'true' path than I can't stop myself from pushing back.

I would not recommend this book to anyone but instead for the first time in my life I would say that the movie is the only version worth spending time and money on. 

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