This is a book that I should have liked better than I actually did.Upon reflection I think that much of this had to do with the fact that the heroine was simply too sweet and self sacrificing for her own good. Warning spoilers:Dr Tyler Wilkes moves to small town Pennsylvania where he comes across the pretty but mute Carrie Wiggins, who lives up the mountain with her drunken step father. There is initial relationship building with Carrie presenting as shy and retiring. She is socially isolated due to her muteness and has to communicate via letters. Of course, she also falls into a Disney stereotype of communing with all wild life, running her own animal hospital ( hidden from the evil step father) and refusing to kill so much as a fly. It turns out that although she is presented as uneducated, she is actually writing her own naturalist book as well. It is all a little too much and I had the unfortunate image of birds tweeting and circling the h's head, a la cinderella/ snow White...Of course there is a snake in paradise and it turns out that the heroine can talk after all. The step father is a sinister figure from the start and it becomes clear that he has abused Carrie and this is why she lost her voice at the outset and then came to believe that he would not attack her again provided she did not speak. She has been pretending not to be able to speak for the last 4 years so as to help assuage his guilt for the rape - Yes it is that ridiculous ...He attacks her again and she flees to the hero. She is in a bad way but this doesn't stop him from seducing her within a matter of hours. At this stage it is hard to have much respect for Tyler. He knows what is right and wrong; he does not regard the h as his social equal and does not want to marry her; he knows he is leaving for good within 2 weeks; he knows that she loves him but whilst he is attracted to her, he does not regard himself as being in love; he knows she has just been attacked and is vulnerable ; despite all of this he proceeds to sleep with her on multiple occasions over the course of 2 days.Unfortunately the step father is found shot dead and Carrie is arrested for the murder which she could not have committed as she was with Tyler. She lies about her whereabouts in order to protect Tyler rather than her own reputation. Of course the dirt comes out and she is then regarded as the town pariah. Tyler asks her to marry him, but he doesn't really want her to say yes and she relieves him by turning him down. He goes off to Cuba, where he writes her ongoing letters, once more failing to declare his love until he has some kind of epiphany . By this stage due to financial constraints Carrie has agreed to marry another man. However it then emerges that she is pregnant. There is a whole load of angst between Carrie, Tyler and Eugene: who should she marry, which promise should be abided by, which man really loves her, who will use her as a human shield ( honestly) etc etc. By the end of all this, It was hard to care...Tyler and Carrie have their hea and go off to live in domestic bliss with the book ending with Carrie enumerating how lucky she is and that she has everything she ever wanted and more, and feeling kind thoughts to everyone....As stated above the heroine was too self sacrificing for words and by the end she just seemed very unrealistic. That said, there was a manipulative quality to some of her actions both re lying to everyone about her muteness and her actions re the pregnancy and all the angst. However, I suppose it was all done for the greater good of perpetuating her victim hood. Her gratitude to the hero for giving her the time of day was somewhat overpowering.the hero was also problematic as I didn't like him very much. He presented as an uptight hypocritical prig. Tyler views himself as too good for Carrie but is content to sleep with her. He is ashamed at having this revealed, not only because of her loss of reputation, but more importantly because he also loses respect within the community whilst at the same time he is worried that she will take him up on his offer of amends and actually marry him. It suits him rightly to go off to Cuba and concentrate on his career. even his reaction to news of the baby is underwhelming. I know that some people really loved this book but in all honesty I just found it a bit of a struggle.
This was light reading, and sometimes in the summer I enjoy something light and not too detailed. It is the story of a young Doctor, wounded while fighting with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders on San Juan Hill. He went to fill in as the doctor in a small farming community in Pennsylvania. This little community has it's quirks and layers of wealth and poverty like any community in the early 1900's. But The doctor meets a young woman who is the step-daughter of the community drunk, who both live way up on the mountain known as Mount Dreamy. It was a sweet little love story, unfortunately, I don't always like a simple love story. I did enjoy the read on this one though.
What do You think about Sweet Everlasting (2001)?
a sweet lullaby of a love story.this book reminded me a lot in tone of the movie winter's bone, though the plots are nothing alike. the book's about a mute girl who lives in the appalachian mountains with her horrible step-father, and she befriends the town doctor and epidemiologist, a former rough rider who's suffering the after-effects of yellow fever. the privation and stark beauty of the mountains are what made me think of winter's bone, so i couldn't help but see the protagonist, carrie, as jennifer lawrence, though i doubt carrie was supposed to be as conventionally pretty. the book's tone also reminded me a bit of nandry and clae, if you will, of Love's Enduring Promise fame. oh! and i kept thinking about this young-adult book i read when i was little about a group of orphans living in the backwoods (maybe in the swamps of louisiana?? i just can't remember) whose parents had both recently been killed, and the eldest daughter made sure that none of the neighbors knew the parents were actually dead -- she kept up a long-going ruse that they were too sick to be visited -- because she knew their neighbors would swoop in and try to claim the land if they knew the kids were unprotected; meanwhile, a really horrible, overweight, malicious drunk was in romantic/sexual pursuit of the eldest daughter, who was only a young teen, and she knew he'd try to marry her the second he thought her parents weren't around to brook her refusal. does that plot sound at all familiar? i wish i could remember the name of the book. it was dark and scary and awesome. to a ten year old. anyway, that tone reminded me of this book, sweet everlasting. pretty good.
—D
Sarebbe stato un libro da quattro stelline per l'argomento trattato e i protagonisti, ne ho tolta una per la parte finale dove la protagonista si fa troppo pregare e si tira per le lunghe qualcosa che era già bello così.Mi è piaciuto molto che il protagonista fosse un medico, ma che volesse fare il ricercatore in un periodo storico in cui non era certo una carriera ben vista ma anzi molte volte mortale. Lui vuole indagare sull'origine della febbre gialla e ci riuscirà. Poi è anche bello che nonostante la sua dedizione e nobiltà d'animo sia umano, e abbia difetti umani, come ad esempio dare importanza alla classe sociale. Lui ama una ragazza di umili origini, ma non pensa mai, almeno all'inizio, di sposarla proprio perché non lo concepisce neppure.La protagonista è molto dolce. Quando scopriamo che si fingeva, muta e racconta un poco come si sia ridotta nella condizione attuale...bè viene logico al lettore supporre cosa sia accaduto alla poverina, eppure non c'è certezza a riguardo se non più avanti. La tensione è ben mantenuta.
—Mariachiara
