It's bothered me for many years that I broke off reading the Grace Harlowe books in early 2011 and never got back to them. On September 14 on Facebook, I posed questions about what I should try to do with the Grace Harlowe situation. I have reordered the questions to match the order in which I actually tried the different options.
1. Should I read my reviews of the first 10 Grace Harlowe books and then try to read the 11th book, Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer?
I read my reviews, but they meant nothing to me. After reading my reviews, I tried to read Golden Summer (the book where I left off almost nine years ago) and couldn't do it since I didn't know the characters.
2. Should I read the first 10 Grace Harlowe books again so that I can read the 11th book, Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer?
This option was the only way I had any hope of reading Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer. It was suggested that I was being too restrictive when I stated that I would need to read the first 10 books again. Not at all. I simply cannot force myself to read a book where the story continues from previous books and where I have no memory of the characters. I only read books when I get some kind of enjoyment out of them. I would get no enjoyment without refreshing my memory.
Therefore, I tried to begin reading the first 10 books again. I read part of the first book and quit. I tried the tenth book, Grace Harlowe's Problem, and quit. I then tried to read Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer again and quit again.
Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer is the counterpart to Marjorie Dean's Romance. Marjorie's romance was not interesting to me. Grace Harlowe doesn't have a Leslie Cairns to liven up the series, so I have no interest in reading Golden Summer.
At this point, I wanted to skip to option #4 and forget the whole thing.
3. Should I try to read Grace Harlowe Overseas just to figure out whether I can stand that set? I fear that I needlessly spent lots of time and money assembling the Overseas and Overland Riders series a decade ago and that I may not like any of them. Others have said that Overland Riders is mostly unreadable.
I had already read the first 46 pages of Grace Harlowe Overseas before I tried option #1 and #2, so I continued with this option. I continued reading Grace Harlowe Overseas and read all of it. Grace Harlowe Overseas is a pretty good book, although I wasn't particularly in the mood to read books set during the First World War. I had hope that I could continue with the Overseas set.
I lost hope temporarily at the start of Grace Harlowe with the Red Cross in France due to too many bombs going off over and over, and I wanted something else to happen. Yes, the content is typical of a book about war, but I didn't want to read about war. I was simply trying to follow up on a commitment I made a long time ago when I spent a lot of money on these books, started reading them, and then never finished reading them.
Fortunately, Red Cross in France gets past the constant bombing, although more bombing happens later. Now, if you like things constantly getting blown up, then I highly recommend the beginning of Red Cross in France. You will love it.
I then tried to read the Grace Harlowe with the Marines at Chateau Thierry. Grace faces explosions constantly. Grace is braver and smarter than the soldiers. I couldn't deal with it.
I tried the next book, couldn't read it, and decided to abandon the Grace Harlowe Overseas series.
4. Should I forget the whole thing? This one is tempting, but I hate that I have never gotten back to Grace Harlowe.
It's option #4 then. I can't read these books. I never liked the original two Grace Harlowe sets that much, which is why I broke off reading the books in 2011.
The Grace Harlowe situation has bothered because I put forth much effort and spent a lot of money acquiring all four sets of the Grace Harlowe books over 10 years ago, most of the books with dust jackets in the original Altemus editions. It has nettled me that I never have read them and have never even tried to read them. If the books had been cheap, I wouldn't care. These were not cheap books.
I have given it a good shot, so I have to be satisfied with that. At the time that I wrote this post, I planned to sell all of my Grace Harlowe Overseas and Grace Harlowe Overland Riders books. I decided to hold off on selling the Grace Harlowe High School Girl and Grace Harlowe College Girl books in order to make certain that I wanted to part with them. Since then, I have decided to rid myself of all of my Grace Harlowe books. Some of them have already been sold. I am happy to have freed up some shelf space.
2 comments:
As they say, there's no use flogging a dead horse, and Grace Harlowe seems to be dead, as far as you're concerned. I hope that potential buyers of your copies don't read this post and are put off from buying them.
If that happens with these books, it won't be the first time. Years ago, I had some extra Adventurous Allens books that I needed to sell. I published my reviews, and nobody wanted my extras. I think I had to place them in a bulk lot that I sold at the cost of postage. I pretty much gave them away.
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