Muppet Video of the Week - June 28 2017

Amazon Warriors: Episode 3 - Davenport House by Marie Silk (Part Two)

The thrilling conclusion of both Davenport House and our vodka egg conversation. Ava comes up with an alternate ending, while Brynn continues to be the voice of reason, and declares victory over a shack in the woods.

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From Amazon.com:

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Davenport House is the first book in a family saga following the wealthy Davenports and their servants in 1915 America. Mary Davenport is a 22-year-old idealist who worries that the world in the Progressive Era is leaving her behind. She lives isolated in the Pennsylvania countryside with her affluent and secretive family. When her father dies suddenly, Mary becomes pained with grief and increasingly suspicious of those around her. A humble servant girl has the chance of a lifetime to become a lady's companion. Costly dresses, exquisite rooms, and fine dinners are pleasant distractions from what is really happening in the house.

TRANSCRIPT:

Ava: Okay, so...give me your final thoughts on this book. 

Brynn: The story was interesting. Um [pause] I picked the book because it had this interesting premise where there's this big mystery happening in this seemingly perfect house. And [pause] while the story was interesting, it seemed to lack a lot, and I feel like, if the author had expanded things a lot more, it'd be this nice, full story. Because, again, the premise is great. But it was a quick read, and it felt rushed in a lot of places. 

A: Yeah, and there – since it is short – there's a lot of room to add more stuff. 

B: It's like you mentioned before, you don't want to overdo [pause] the backstory, you don't want to overdo the descriptions, but more is okay. You don't have to have two paragraphs to a scene. You can have more than that. 

A: I really – I actually quite enjoyed this book, but my main problem with it is that [pause] Mary was such an inactive protagonist. And she had a lot of motivation because her father is dead, but she really didn't do anything with that. And obviously there's the problem of being a lady in 1915, but I reread one of my favorite books, Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal because that book takes place in the Regency Era, and the main character uses her knowledge of the womanly arts – which in this case includes magic. Um, men also do magic in this world, but it's sort of considered to be the domain of women – so she uses that, she uses fancy manners and her ability to guide a conversation to get through the book. But at the end of the book, she does have to resort to straight up clubbing a dude with a pistol. Um, so, there was action at the end of that book, and I feel like this book could have done with just a little more movement. 

B: I know in, um, Uprising, which I've mentioned several times throughout this episode, um, Jane, she was a rich girl in New York City, and [pause] she realized, kind of, that she was trained to be helpless. I mean [pause] women in those days, they were basically trained to be the perfect housewife, and [pause], she felt that she had, really, no real skills as far as [pause] doing anything goes, you know? 

A: Yeah. That's why I do like Shades of Milk and Honey so much, because she uses what she's been taught as a woman in the Regency Era to get stuff done. 

B: It sounds like a good book. 

A: It's awesome, you should read it. 

B: Okay, so now we are going to go into star reviews for this book. Star reviews are again, um, from one to five – one being lowest five being highest – we can do half-stars, and that's about it. First star point is editing; how did you feel about the editing in this book? 

A: I didn't really have that many complaints, I gave it a four out of five. The scene break thing bothered me a little bit, but other than that I was good. 

B: See, I was a little bit harsher this time, I kind of felt three out of five, cause, I don't know, I just felt like more could've been done. Um [ pause], there was the breaks, which were weird, uh, there were the parts that felt [pause] rushed or drab, and there just – I felt there could've been more to it, so I have it a three. Next point is plot. 

A: That's where I took off some points, I gave it a three out of five on plot because of those weird rushed areas or parts that didn't seem to fit or were pointless. 

B: Yeah, I also gave it a three. Overall, the plot had good flow as a whole, you got from point A to point B in a logical manner for the most part, but, like you said, there were things that didn't fit, there were things that were rushed that could've gone into more detail. So I also gave it a three out of five for that. Next point is characterization. How did you feel about that? 

A: I gave that a three out of five as well, because [pause] unfortunately I didn't super care about Mary that much. [Sigh] I just felt like some of the characters were a little bit flat, and since we were head-hopping so much, I didn't feel like I was getting to know them that well. 

B: Yeah, there were really only a few characters that that you kind of [pause] got more insight to, and really, that was mostly just Ethan and Clara. Like, you got to know more about their lives and their personalities [pause], but the rest of the characters you're made to feel like you should know them, but we really didn't know them all that well. 

A: Yeah. 

B: Um, William was an interesting character and I'm glad that we got his story, but, like you said, Mary was just kind of flat, and [pause] her brother was kind of a stereotype, Catherine was kind of a stereotype. 

A: Yeah, so was her mom as well, I guess, she was – even though she was her mom she was sort of an evil stepmother character. 

B: Yeah. Now, final point is dialogue. 

A: I gave it a four out of five on dialogue, I felt it was fairly natural except for some times when they didn't use contractions. I also – part of that point deduction is because of the way they occasionally had a conversation that was glossed over with just a couple sentences about what it was about. 

B: Yeah, I would go with a four out of five there as well, I mean, most of my main qualms with the dialogue were covered by the editing and plot points, and so I feel it'd be unfair to take more off here. I mean, like you said, the conversations, for the most part they seemed [pause] natural and good, you know. But –" 

A: Yeah. 

B: My main concern with them was just that they seemed rushed, and so that's mostly in the editing and plot stars. 

A: Yeah. 

B: So my overall, I guess, would be a three out of five. It was an enjoyable book, but I felt like the author could've done more with it, and I would be interested in seeing, um, how much this improves in the later books – there are six books in the series. 

A: Yeah, I gave it a three-and-a-half out of five, which I think – you gave a three-and-a-half out of five on the last book and I gave a three out of five on the last book [laughs]. 

B: So we kind of flip-flopped. 

A: Yes [laughs]. So what was your favorite part of this book? 

B: I guess my favorite thing was probably [pause] when Mary kind of realized she had control, and she kind of took charge, and up to that point, you know, Mary just wasn't [pause] all that interesting. But then she realized, okay, this is my house, and [pause] for once I have a say in something. I can [pause] make this place great, you know? 

A: Yeah. 

B: And it just showed that, you know, she's not this [pause] boring character once you give her something to do, and it'd be interesting to see how she manages the house, because you can tell that it would be something she would be passionate about. 

A: My favorite part was the moment I realized that [pause] Clara was Mary's sister. It did come a little too soon in the book for me, but it's still exciting to have that realization. So what was your least favorite part of this book? 

B: My least favorite was probably the explanation [pause] of Clara. Cause, like you said, it had the weird jump, and then when it was explained to the reader, it could have been written more eloquently because I was kind of confused by the whole thing at first [laughs]. And like I said, it made more sense once I [pause] said everything out loud. But it was just kind of this rushed little paragraph, you know? 

A: Yeah. 

B: And it's like, the whole book was building up to that point, and it was just like "oh, okay" [laughs]. 

A: Yeah, I was kind of expecting [pause] more of an interesting, in depth story, and it was like, a paragraph. 

B: Yeah. 

A: My least favorite part of this book is that [pause] there wasn't enough history stuff for me. They didn't – even though they talked about fashion, even, they didn't even go into what was popular at that time. They described the house, but they described it kind of vaguely, so that I didn't get an idea for when the house was built. I just felt like I was going into [pause] a historical fiction, and I didn't really get a historical – a historical fiction. What I got is sort of a story that could be told in any time period, with just sort of, you know, a background of 1915 thrown up behind it, but it's just a matte painting, it's not the whole – 

B: I mean, really, other than the, um, the carriages, I mean this basically could have been set in a small town like the town in Rune Gate, you know? 

A: Yeah. 

B: I mean, they just had a couple of cops, and [pause] were in the middle of nowhere [laughs]. 

A: Thank you for listening to Amazon Warriors. You can find us on Twitter @thebookwarriors, and you can email us at warriors (at) superfuntimes (dot) net. Next episode we'll be discussing A Room with a View by E.M. Forster.