On the Seas to Troy by Caroline B. Cooney

( On the Seas to Troy by Caroline B. Cooney )

Also, it mentioned Medea (the love interest's mother, who's even worse than Helen) and actually made me like Aeneas. I know. But he's rather sweet here, and you end up with a mental image of him swordfighting his enemies while holding a baby Pleisthenes under his other arm. Marvellous.

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Hey, just_marzipan, you were right. I did like this one better than To the Lighthouse.

I have a problem with Woolf, in that I can see when her novels are being technically brilliant and while I admire it greatly, I have not the slightest interest in reading it. I tend to pick on one or two characters, eventually decide that I like them, and end up waiting more or less politely for the novel to get back to them.

In the case of Mrs Dalloway, I liked Septimus and Rezia Warren Smith, I liked Richard Dalloway (and more often than not Clarissa Dalloway herself) and every single other character left me cold. Peter Walsh I actively hated. Miss Kilman made me cringe. Do I get thrown off my English Lit course now?

(Actually, I really loved Septimus Warren Smith. His crumbling sanity was portrayed beautifully, while still letting him remain sympathetic - and his wife Rezia, tired but still protective and loving - and I think the most brilliantly effective scene is the hope spot at the end, when Septimus is fiercely trying to hold on to what's left of his mind so that he can reconnect with Rezia, and then he hears Dr Holmes coming up the stairs. Chilling and a masterpiece.)