Review: My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart
My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mary Stewart is fun. She takes a little work for fun, sometimes it takes a month or 9 to build up momentum. I started this in September and didn’t accomplish much until Friday when I read it in two days.
As romances go, this one was pretty subtle, but I appreciate that. Simon and Camilla kind of fall in instant love, but no one talks about it – they keep dancing around it, even joking a little about it, but it’s never really obvious and if the reader were a skimmer, or not reading carefully she might miss the oblique comments between them. It’s rather realistic in an unrealistic way. I have to say, I like that.
I’m also glad that I’d just read Euripides – a different play to be sure – so the epigraphs were especially meaningful. Stewart is obviously really well educated and well read. Her allusions are spot on and worth looking up to if you don’t know them. The setting – in and around Delphi – is so beautifully crafted with words that you feel as though the ancient Greek landscape is, in itself, a character in the story.
It can be hard to work so diligently to enjoy a light read, but Mary Stewart is worth it. My “guilty pleasure” book for the 20 for 2020 reading challenge with The Literary Life podcast.