Beaumont, M. 2009 E squared

Oh, this is trivial nonsense. If you've read it, you'll know that. If you haven't, what are you waiting for? Everyone needs a bit of comforting ephemera in the bath now and then. This doesn't disappoint if you keep your expectations at that level.

Don't speak French? Me either! I found completely skipping past the sub plot did no harm to the story.

Don't like swearing or naughty drugs? It's not for you.

First line: Well here we are again. Another year, another catalogue of ups, downs and in betweens. Mostly ups, it has to be said.

Last line: Cunt.

Webster, J. 1915 Dear Enemy

Sequel to Dear Daddy Long Legs. I was so desperate to read this as a kid I stole it from the library. This was a wrong thing to do, but I was only allowed four books a week and that just wasn't nearly enough. And it was 30 years ago. They've probably written off the loss by now.

Here, Sally McB turns her college educated mind to running an orphanage. This, she appreciates, is important to get right:

the future health and happiness of a hundred humn beings lie in my hands, to say nothing of their three or four hundred children and thousand grand children. The thing's geometrically progressive.

First line:

Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement. Do I understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas present, the making over of the John Grier Home into a model institution, and that you have chosen me to disburse the money?

Last line: Nope. It gives away the ending.

Webster, J. 1912 Dear Daddy Long Legs

There's something about an epistolary novel. I think I'd have been nine or ten the first time I read this book. I know I got it from the library, and read it in one night. Thirty years later, this was another one-night book. Charming, and sweet, it's as good as I remember.

This is a fairy tale, an orphan made good story. She gets her education and her man. What's not to love?

There's some proto feminism in here too. I loved this thought, tucked away in Judy's description of college learning:

Don't you think I'd make an admirable voter if I had my rights? I was twenty-one last week. This is an awfully wasteful country to throw away such an honest, educated, conscientious, intelligent citizen as I would be. 

First line:

 The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day - a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste.

Last line:

This is the first love letter I ever wrote. Isn't it funny that I know how?