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Curiosity (2010)

by Joan Thomas(Favorite Author)

3.6 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

077108417X (ISBN13: 9780771084171)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

McClelland & Stewart

review 1: I had a really hard time getting into this book. It took me a week to read the first 30 pages! There is a lot of old British slang used at the beginning of the book and I found that confusing and off-putting. I also kept feeling like I missed something important and kept flipping back and re-reading to no avail. By the time I got to 100 pages (about a quarter of the book), it was moving very slowly and I couldn't really tell you what the book was about. It didn't capture my attention at all. This was a book club selection so I kept plodding thorough. After 100 pages, the story picked up and it became more interesting and by about 200 / 250 pages, there was less old British slang and I started enjoying it. The author does a great job of staying true to the historica... morel record and illustrating the class differences between the two main characters as well as their common interests of fossil collecting and science. It also demonstrates the challenges the Biblical story of Genesis presented to advancing science. It shows how many major scientific discoveries were credited to gentlemen, as opposed to a lower-class poverty-stricken woman. Because of the formality of the language, I found it hard to "get to know" the main characters for the majority of the book. However, there are passages and chapters in the last third to quarter of the book that I found luminous and I could finally empathize with the characters and their real-life constraints. I'm not sure I can recommend this book due to the extremely slow start but the book gets progressively better if you stay with it.If I could rate this book in sections I would give it a "1" for the first quarter, a "2" for the second quarter, a "3" for the third quarter, and a "4" for the last quarter.
review 2: A wholly imagined love between two historical figures, this is an engaging and intricate story. Mary Anning was the impoverished 12 year-old who discovered and excavated the first Ichthyosaurus skeleton ever found. Unorthodox and artistic, young Henry de la Beche was a budding geologist when he first met Mary in the village of Lyme Regis on the coast of southern England. It is here that Anning lived out her entire life and career, making numerous other discoveries and helping to develop, along with de la Beche, the science of archeology. Through meticulous research and deep insight, Thomas brings these two characters, archeology, and the village and era to life. Curiosity really held my attention and I want to learn more about Anning and de la Beche. That is, if Thomas has left any more to be learned! less

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