Monday 8 February 2016

Book review: Dear Mr Knightley


Samantha Moore grew up in foster care and learned to survive by hiding in books. In the company of her beloved fictional characters she feels save. After college and a failed attempt at a big city job, Samantha gets the opportunity of a lifetime when the anonymous benefactor who calls himself Mr Knightley offers her a scholarship to Medill School of Journalism. The only condition is that Samantha writes regular letters to Mr Knightley. Samantha starts her education, but finds out writing isn't as easy as she thought and neither is growing up. But when she starts making real friends in her classmate Ashley, fellow foster kid Kyle and famous novelist Alex Powell her life really starts to change.


I had really high expectations for this novel. It was all over the pages of my blogging friends in the last year and they only had good things to say about it. And let's be honest: a novel based on a literary classic (Daddy Long-legs), with a main character who loves classic novels: that is like catnip to any lover of these classics like me, right? But maybe it's dangerous to have such high expectations, because in the end I ended up liking the novel just fine, but not loving it and feeling somewhat dissapointed about this.

First, lets talk about the good! I did indeed love all the classic literature references. If you know and love Austen, Brönte, Gaskell etc., this book immediately feels familiar. I also loved Samantha's friendships with the teenager Kyle and her classmate Ashley, it was nice to see those relationships developing and seeing Samantha open herself up more and more. And who can not love Alex, he was just amazing: sweet, intelligent, funny, basically a dream guy. I really liked the scenes of him and Samantha hanging out together, getting to know each other. I liked how Katherine Reay let the relationship develop gradually, so often, even in Christian fiction, relationships move forward at breakneck speed, this was a real good chance in that respect.

So, why didn't I love this novel then? It was not the story itself, but the way the story was told: through letters. I had such a hard time suspending my disbelief that Samantha who was so closed and guarded, would write such detailed and intimate letters to someone she doesn't even know. In the book an explanation is given: Mr Knightley promises he would never write back, so Samantha feels save in that. But even so, he would still read them and I can't reconcile that with Samantha's character. I mean, she wrote about her first kiss to basically a stranger! And her benefactor nonetheless. It is, I think, a more general problem with letter novels, that the letters have to be made more detailed then they would be in real life for the story to be told. But still, I didn't have this same problem with Daddy Long-legs, maybe because the heroine there was younger and mostly wrote about less personal things? Another thing that bothered me was the ending, it felt really rushed after Alex's secret came out. I wished Katherine Reay had given Samantha more time to process all that. 

I'm still very curious about Katherine Reay's next books though, because I think her story ideas are great. I actually already bought Lizzy&Jane as an e-book! 

If you've read this book (and I know quite a number of you have), what were your thoughts about the format and how it impacted the story?

12 comments:

  1. I'm not really into the epistolary style so Dear Mr. Knightley, while good, wasn't fully to my liking. That's one reason why I really did enjoy Lizzy & Jane because it's not epistolary! And I don't think Reay's latest work is either. Although I do feel that I should re-read Dear Mr. Knightley one of these days, just to be sure how I feel about it.

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    1. Glad to hear I'm not the only one who has a problem with that. Usually I come away from epistolary books with a feeling of 'Yeah, this was a great idea, but the execution, not so much'
      Looking forward to reading Lizzy & Jane!

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  2. I'll be picking this up at the library tomorrow :-D I don't mind epistolary novels at all, so that probably won't bother me.

    Oh, and both Lizzy & Jane and The Bronte Plot are NOT epistolary, so no worries there for you! I liked TBP a lot, and L&J even more.

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    1. I´m looking forward to reading Lizzy & Jane soon!

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    2. I read this in two days. I can't at all decide which book of hers I like best, but it miiiiiiiight be this one. Simply because I liked the heroine best -- she was more flawed and damaged than the other two, and I liked her arc a lot.

      I did wish we learned more about Aleex's past, though.

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    3. That's great that you loved it so much! Look forward to reading your review!

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  3. Great review! I think the thought did occur to me as I was reading that Samantha was revealing a bit much in her letters to her benefactor but over time it sort of became a non-issue for me the deeper we got into the story. I don't remember if I mentioned it in my review but I do remember feeling that the ending was a bit rushed and Samantha didn't have enough time to process through everything she had just found out.

    I have yet to read Reay's other books but they both sound very interesting! :)

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    1. Yes, I wasn't bothered by the intimacy of the letters all the time. It was, after all, a very good story in itself. But now and then it would suddenly annoy me again.

      Oh, that ending! But also the ending of Daddy Long legs. Both those heroines forgot and forgave within a few pages that their lover was also their secret benefactor. Not so realistic that....

      Still, I'm with you in the feeling that Reay has some really good and original story ideas!

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  4. Oh, my goodness! I adored this novel. The letters did throw me at first and I assumed I'd not enjoy it because of this. How wrong I was!

    Sorry it didn't suit you as you anticipated, Birdie, but I'm glad you did enjoy it despite some of the bad. :)

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    1. Well, if we all liked the same it would be boring right! ;-)

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  5. I loved, loved, loved this story! And I'm glad you were able to enjoy it overall. Like you mention to Rissi above, it really would be boring if we all liked the same things! I enjoy chatting about the particulars of a story with someone who may disagree. It's one of the awesome things about reading, in my opinion. There's something out there for everyone! :)

    That being said, I can see what you mean about suspending belief. I think one probably has to do that with any epistolary novel. I also love Amanda Grange's diary books about Jane Austen's heroes, but there's a considerable amount of suspension of belief there as well. It doesn't bother me though. So far, I'm a big fan of epistolary stories! One thing I haven't been able to enjoy though, is ones where they use emails and text messages to relay the story. Something about that format bugs me. *shrugs*

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    1. Yes,the Amanda Grange diaries sometimes make me snicker. Like Darcy or Wenthworth would sit down in the evening and write down his inner thoughts most detailed, including all the conversations he had that day... Still, fun books nonetheless!

      One epistolary novel that also includes emails and text messages and that I absolutely adore is More Than Love Letters by Rosy Thornton, which is a modern day retelling of North and South! If you can find it, do give it a try!

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