The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

Title: The Tea Rose

Author: Jennifer Donnelly

Genre: Historical fiction

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2003

Source: Library

Fiona Finnegan, a worker in Burton's tea factory, knows tea so well she can tell you what it is just by smelling it. Her dreams stretch beyond the factory to owning a tea shop of her own, and the handsome Joe Bristow wants to help her do it. However, as circumstances change and twist down unexpected paths, Fiona will take a turn away from Joe and into a life she never expected.

Oh, Jennifer Donnelly. You just have this way with you. At the beginning of this book, I was disappointed. The huge tome flitted back and forth between characters' perspectives in third person omniscient, a style I don't really care for that seems all too pervasive in historical fiction. I missed the strong, personality-filled first person voices of Donnelly's two young adult novels. And the drama that gave Revolution and A Northern Light so much passion at first seemed mawkish and over the top, with Fiona's loved ones dropping like flies. I almost felt like I didn't have to turn the page - I knew that someone was going to die, or some plan was going to fall through, or the money had run out, or the cows hadn't come home. After about 150 pages, I was ready to throw in the towel.

And then, somehow, Donnelly lured me in. Despite my annoyance at all the drama, despite my sense of being jarred as perspectives switched from character to character (all in the third person, mind you), I became emotionally invested in the story. Despite my lack of interest in the business world, or the fact that it did seem ludicrous that Fiona was thrust into society with the monopoly giants of her time. Despite the fact that it seemed absolutely silly to me to claim that she'd invented iced tea as a sales tactic to the South. Despite the fact that for much of the book Joe Bristow seemed like an absolute word-I-can't-say-in-a-public-space and I couldn't understand why she just wouldn't get over him.

Okay, that is a fairly long list of "despites." However, at the end of the book, I couldn't stop thinking of it. Once again, Donnelly pulled her trick of weaving in a historical event with astonishing believability - this time, with Jack the Ripper, a subject I was surprised to see lending itself so well to the story as a whole. She also had her invented historical character woven into the plot, although in this case it was Fiona herself, a tactic I don't think works quite as well with a main character. And by the end, Joe had grown up a little bit, and I was able to accept him. I honestly never loved him, but I was able to grant him the right to Fiona's heart.

The real pull for me in this story, I think, was Nicholas Soames, Fiona's best friend and right-hand man. He was the reason I couldn't get the story out of my head days after finishing it. For some reason I am absolutely entranced by stories of strong, platonic friendship love between men and women. Maybe it's because my own life romance grew out of a platonic friendship into something more. It's the element in a love story that will always seal the deal for me, even if the relationship never becomes a true love story. Nicholas and Fiona's relationship was unconventional in every way, but it solidified what would have been only a weak inclination toward the book.

The Tea Rose is definitely a first novel, lacking the polish and passion of the other works I've read by Donnelly. However, it still made a lasting impression, and I look forward to finishing the trilogy. I'm only giving it a 3.5 because I expect better from Donnelly, but don't let that keep you from reading it.

3.5 stars

Warnings for the sensitive reader: Some f-bombs from dock workers, 4-5 sex scenes I had to skim over because they were too graphic for me

YA Friday: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

Title: A Northern Light

Author: Jennifer Donnelly

Genre: YA, historical fiction

Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books, 2003

Source: Library

Mattie Gokey spends most of her time keeping her family together. After her mother passed away, it's been hard to keep food on the table and all her sisters healthy and clean. However, she dreams of books and writing, hoping to attend college. Her teacher and best friend both push her to pursue her dreams, but family responsibilities and a potential romance have her wondering where her path should lead. Set against the background of the murder featured in Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, Mattie is required to make life-changing decisions.

Oh, Jennifer Donnelly. How I love you. And I have the first book in your adult trilogy sitting on my bookshelf right now. I'm curious to see how she writes for adults, because her YA books definitely have me hooked. I think the element of her books that I enjoy most is just the intelligence she uses to weave everything together. Mattie's life is the center of the action, but surrounding it we have the murder, which in some ways parallels some of Mattie's insecurities, and the mysterious Emily Baxter, one of Donnelly's invented historical figures that I wish was real so I could read her poetry. (A similar invented historical character is Amade Malherbeau from Revolution).

Donnelly is a master at creating strong characters. Mattie was very distinct from Andi, the main character in Revolution. In my (ever humble) opinion, if a writer plans on using the first person all the time, their different characters had better have different voices. I think this can be a difficult task to accomplish, but Donnelly does it well, bringing to the table a girl less troubled than Andi, a girl determined to keep her promises while breaking under the desire to fulfill her own dreams. At times she frustrates me, spending time with a dorkus (using words like "dorkus" is probably one of the reasons bloggers get pegged as unprofessional, but no other word describes my feelings adequately) like Royal who waves away her dreams by talking about soil and planting. Mattie isn't perfect - she is a teenager, after all, and who didn't make at least one stupid mistake in their teenage years? However, as she struggles through her oppressive circumstances, she begins to discover who she really is. The other characters are also fantastic, especially Weaver, Mattie's best friend, a boy who will not accept discrimination from others, no matter what the consequence.

Another element of this book that I adored was the sheer bookishness. (Remember what I said yesterday about authors always putting bookish elements in their books? I think for Donnelly it is sheer love of books). Mattie loves words and tries to use a new word every day. I loved the way she turned big, obscure words to fit her situations. I also loved her description of Emily Baxter's library - who hasn't felt that way on their first time in a beautiful bookstore or library?

There were dozens of names I didn’t know. Eliot. Zola. Whitman. Wilde. Yeats. Sand. Dickinson. Goethe. And all those were in just one stack! There were lives in those books, and deaths. Families and friends and lovers and enemies. Joy and despair, jealousy, envy, madness, and rage. All there. […] I could alsmost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.

Much as I am gushing about Jennifer Donnelly, the book wasn't perfect. I struggled with the back-and-forth between Mattie's time at the hotel figuring out the murder, and her time at home trying to get to the hotel. I thought it was an interesting device, but I didn't understand the point and found it to be generally distracting. And while I liked Mattie herself a bit better than Andi in Revolution, this book didn't hold the same intensity and passion for me. It was a good book - a great book - but it didn't cause me to put down the book and just think when I was done with it.

All and all, though, this is an excellent read. The bookish will especially enjoy Mattie's obsession with words and her enchantment with new books.

4 stars