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A review by zireael
A Daily Rate by Susan O'Malley, Grace Livingston Hill
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I had high hopes for this one. I enjoy some of Livingston Hill's books, despite the religious aspect, because her trope of 'girl with money enters a run-down home and makes it lovely with cleaning and baking and heart' is all of my jams. It's why I keep re-reading Brentwood and The Honor Girl . This book looked like it would be right up that alley, but alas. Apart from a chapter or two focusing on that kind of Jane Eyre-ian domestic fervor, it's mostly about how the main character and her aunt spread the word of Jesus to the boarding house inmates and re-makes them into good Christian folk.
Things I liked:
-Celia trying to add some beauty into the run-down boarding house.
-Molly Poppleton.
-The brief, glorious, deep cleaning and food porn section.
Things I disliked:
-Celia's interaction with the 'three cent girls'. Poor Mamie is a sort of Eliza to Celia's Professor Higgins, except Celia makes Mamie as much as possible into herself. All the while secretly quailing with disgust at having to interact with her at all.
-If you're a Christian, you only sing sweet religious songs. People who like funny or romantic songs have such awful taste, can they even be saved?
-Celia assuming that the girl in Horace's picture was his girlfriend, and thus treating him with maidenly coolness, for a full third of the book. It's a predictable and tiresome trope.
-Livingson Hill's apparent belief that it's 'unmaidenly' for girls to fall in love without open encouragement. Pops up in Re-Creations too, if I remember rightly.
Things I liked:
-Celia trying to add some beauty into the run-down boarding house.
-Molly Poppleton.
-The brief, glorious, deep cleaning and food porn section.
Things I disliked:
-Celia's interaction with the 'three cent girls'. Poor Mamie is a sort of Eliza to Celia's Professor Higgins, except Celia makes Mamie as much as possible into herself. All the while secretly quailing with disgust at having to interact with her at all.
-If you're a Christian, you only sing sweet religious songs. People who like funny or romantic songs have such awful taste, can they even be saved?
-Celia assuming that the girl in Horace's picture was his girlfriend, and thus treating him with maidenly coolness, for a full third of the book. It's a predictable and tiresome trope.
-Livingson Hill's apparent belief that it's 'unmaidenly' for girls to fall in love without open encouragement. Pops up in Re-Creations too, if I remember rightly.