A review by tjlcody
Down the Rabbit Hole, Chicago, Illinois, 1871: The Diary of Pringle Rose by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
2.0
(Aaand I accidentally refreshed the page, erasing my entire review. Let's try again.)
So, overall, I liked the plot.
Unfortunately, it tended to jump back and forth a bit. And I don't just mean at the beginning, when Pringle is recounting why she and Gideon left home. The plot just felt a bit crowded, detail-wise; we have the circumstances surrounding the parents' deaths, the train, Miss Ringwald, The Pritchetts, Rabbit, Pringle's employment, Merricat, Gideon's issues, and then the fire- it was all just a bit much. I feel like the author tried a bit too hard to cram in a lot of things, and the book suffered for it.
Then we have the writing-style. All right, I get that the epilogue says that Pringle's diary was eventually published for public consumption, but there's no mention that she edited it- only that it was published. And it was mentioned at the very, very end of the book.
So by that point, we've been reading a book that reads less like a diary and more like a novel. There's too much detail, too much description- too much to convince me that this is the diary of a teenage girl, however educated. Like, the incident with Peter and the anti-union people? The fight is described with a sort of detail that seems entirely unrealistic from the perspective of a frightened fourteen year-old. It felt like an adult trying to write a young teenager's perspective and not doing very well- and again, we're not given much indication that Pringle supposedly edited the diary as an adult. Assuming she did? It's still jarring while you're reading, because you don't realize it until the very ending.
And then there's the ironic foreshadowing. When they're on their way to Ringwald's when they first get to Chicago, Pringle and Gideon meet a cabbie, who actually lampshades the fact that Chicago is made of wood and could very easily go up in smoke. Except... We don't need the foreshadowing. We don't. We all went into this book knowing that the historical topic was "The Great Chicago Fire". It's right on the front of the book. We don't need the wink-wink nudge-nudge. Not only is it unnecessary, but it actually takes you out of the book a bit because, yeah, we know what's coming, that's why we're reading it.
Not to mention, even if you read the book knowing that Pringle may have (and probably did) edited it later on, it still comes off as a bit melodramatic and contrived.
Her parents die,
The Chicago Fire itself ends up getting shoved to the very end of the book. Not even kidding- it's relegated to the last twelve pages. I get that setting the scene is important, but this major disaster that is meant to be the underlying subject of the book is just shoved to the last pages. We don't see Pringle and Gideon recovering from it, we don't see the effect that it had on Chicago- nothing. It's a blip on the radar at most.
Look- if you're touting the book as being about the Great Chicago Fire, then you should probably make that, at the very least, a semi-major part of the book. The historical aspects of these books are why people read them. They are supposed to be the focus of the book, with the main character's life and development as an equal part. The characters are important, of course, but the audience looks at the historical event and says, "Hmm, I don't know about that, let's have a look."
When you open the book expecting to hear about the Great Chicago Fire and said book barely even touches upon it, it's a bit of a let-down; not just for the story, but for what you were hoping to learn from it.
So, overall, I liked the plot.
Unfortunately, it tended to jump back and forth a bit. And I don't just mean at the beginning, when Pringle is recounting why she and Gideon left home. The plot just felt a bit crowded, detail-wise; we have the circumstances surrounding the parents' deaths, the train, Miss Ringwald, The Pritchetts, Rabbit, Pringle's employment, Merricat, Gideon's issues, and then the fire- it was all just a bit much. I feel like the author tried a bit too hard to cram in a lot of things, and the book suffered for it.
Then we have the writing-style. All right, I get that the epilogue says that Pringle's diary was eventually published for public consumption, but there's no mention that she edited it- only that it was published. And it was mentioned at the very, very end of the book.
So by that point, we've been reading a book that reads less like a diary and more like a novel. There's too much detail, too much description- too much to convince me that this is the diary of a teenage girl, however educated. Like, the incident with Peter and the anti-union people? The fight is described with a sort of detail that seems entirely unrealistic from the perspective of a frightened fourteen year-old. It felt like an adult trying to write a young teenager's perspective and not doing very well- and again, we're not given much indication that Pringle supposedly edited the diary as an adult. Assuming she did? It's still jarring while you're reading, because you don't realize it until the very ending.
And then there's the ironic foreshadowing. When they're on their way to Ringwald's when they first get to Chicago, Pringle and Gideon meet a cabbie, who actually lampshades the fact that Chicago is made of wood and could very easily go up in smoke. Except... We don't need the foreshadowing. We don't. We all went into this book knowing that the historical topic was "The Great Chicago Fire". It's right on the front of the book. We don't need the wink-wink nudge-nudge. Not only is it unnecessary, but it actually takes you out of the book a bit because, yeah, we know what's coming, that's why we're reading it.
Not to mention, even if you read the book knowing that Pringle may have (and probably did) edited it later on, it still comes off as a bit melodramatic and contrived.
Her parents die,
Spoiler
because the mysterious boy she meets in the cemetery was hired to lean on her father on behalf of the unions- OH, and by the way, mysterious boy happens to be the younger brother of the kind woman who takes Pringle and Gideon in, whose other brother was killed in a mining accident that Pringle's father is responsible for. And then, when Kind Woman realizes this, she lets Pringle and Gideon (who are fourteen and ten respectively, who have lived with her for weeks, who have taken care of and been friendly with her and her children) run off because she never wants to see them again, being the Horrible Children of that Evil Man Who Let My Brother Die). Oh, and they're running off whilst a major fire is breaking out. Yeah, could have toned the drama down a bit.The Chicago Fire itself ends up getting shoved to the very end of the book. Not even kidding- it's relegated to the last twelve pages. I get that setting the scene is important, but this major disaster that is meant to be the underlying subject of the book is just shoved to the last pages. We don't see Pringle and Gideon recovering from it, we don't see the effect that it had on Chicago- nothing. It's a blip on the radar at most.
Look- if you're touting the book as being about the Great Chicago Fire, then you should probably make that, at the very least, a semi-major part of the book. The historical aspects of these books are why people read them. They are supposed to be the focus of the book, with the main character's life and development as an equal part. The characters are important, of course, but the audience looks at the historical event and says, "Hmm, I don't know about that, let's have a look."
When you open the book expecting to hear about the Great Chicago Fire and said book barely even touches upon it, it's a bit of a let-down; not just for the story, but for what you were hoping to learn from it.