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kebreads's review against another edition
4.0
This was a fun read. I enjoyed the tone of the book and the adventure it set forth.
Content: Clean - some violence mentioned
Content: Clean - some violence mentioned
kellbells's review
2.0
I was totally on board with the idea of a super-smart, super-capable teen girl adventurer in the 19th century (and she has red hair of course, because this is Lloyd Alexander). This was just okay, not great. Still love the Indiana Jones-style cover art.
manwithanagenda's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Vesper Holly is a young orphan with no small opinion of herself and as she careens through a late Victorian world she is persistantly the smartest, bravest, most intelligent and most beautiful in the room.
Her late father had done some research on a peculiar folk belief of the small kingdom of Illyria. His conclusion had been laughed at. She convinces her guardian to take her there at once and get to the bottom of it. The country is on the verge of revolution, but that doesn't stop our girl.
This was very simplistic and I doubt I approached it in the proper spirit. Unfortunately I loved Lloyd Alexander enough to buy the first four books when they appeared in a local second hand shop. I'll be carrying on.
Vesper Hollly
Next: 'The El Dorado Adventure'
Her late father had done some research on a peculiar folk belief of the small kingdom of Illyria. His conclusion had been laughed at. She convinces her guardian to take her there at once and get to the bottom of it. The country is on the verge of revolution, but that doesn't stop our girl.
This was very simplistic and I doubt I approached it in the proper spirit. Unfortunately I loved Lloyd Alexander enough to buy the first four books when they appeared in a local second hand shop. I'll be carrying on.
Vesper Hollly
Next: 'The El Dorado Adventure'
wyrmdog's review against another edition
4.0
I've loved Alexander since my mom bought several books and asked me to choose one. I chose the Book of Three. I've probably read that entire series a dozen times over in my life and they were and are a big impact on how I process fantasy stories, moreso even than Lord of the Rings, which was and often still is the banner fantasy property in the west.
When I found out he had done a series about a young, globe-trotting redhead, I knew I had to track it down. I wasn't able to find them new, so I had to source them from...Thriftbooks? I can't remember. Anyway, I found them and ordered the entire thing, site-unseen, as the saying goes.
So the book...
It has possibly the best opening line of any book, starting off, "Vesper Holly has the digestive talents of a goat..."
Alexander has elided Indiana Jones into a teenage girl, given her a mentor of sorts, and an insatiable curiosity. It surprised me that it was written in the first person, the perspective of her new guardian, Vesper having been recently orphaned. It takes no time finding its voice, confident but surprisingly tame for all its rapid pacing and flashing swords and thundering dynamite and investigative archaeology.
Good clean fun, I am looking forward to discovering more of this little gem I missed the first time around.
When I found out he had done a series about a young, globe-trotting redhead, I knew I had to track it down. I wasn't able to find them new, so I had to source them from...Thriftbooks? I can't remember. Anyway, I found them and ordered the entire thing, site-unseen, as the saying goes.
So the book...
It has possibly the best opening line of any book, starting off, "Vesper Holly has the digestive talents of a goat..."
Alexander has elided Indiana Jones into a teenage girl, given her a mentor of sorts, and an insatiable curiosity. It surprised me that it was written in the first person, the perspective of her new guardian, Vesper having been recently orphaned. It takes no time finding its voice, confident but surprisingly tame for all its rapid pacing and flashing swords and thundering dynamite and investigative archaeology.
Good clean fun, I am looking forward to discovering more of this little gem I missed the first time around.
girlpuck's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
wickedplutoswickedreading's review against another edition
3.0
Charming but a lot of deus ex machina
lolaleviathan's review against another edition
5.0
Vesper Holly is pretty much the best role model for a little girl ever. She's like Indiana Jones but a girl. And a redhead. Oh yeah.
happyocelot's review against another edition
5.0
I read this series as a young child and I am re-reading them because I want to remember why I loved the books so much. Vesper is completely mature for her age and the type of heroine you want to be. She has a tendency to cut through the bullsh*t which is something I appreciated as a reader. In a lot of books, there are puzzling questions and struggles. In the Vesper Holly series, Vesper knows what she wants and she goes after it. She is fearless. She is fierce. She is triumphant. I still love reading these books. They are a timeless classic. I am sad that my local library doesn't have all the books in the series anymore, but I was able to order them off of amazon. I hope they stay in print!
the_discworldian's review
4.0
A version of this review appeared on my blog, drinkingandink.
Popsugar 2016 Reading Challenge: A book you haven't read since high school.
This item on the reading challenge gave me a bit of a Moment. I didn't go to high school. The only way I could possibly fulfill it would be if I managed to find a Driver's Ed manual, because that was the only book I ever read "when I was in high school." And who wants to read a Driver's Ed manual, even the first time?
Then I lightened up and decided to just go ahead and interpret this item as "a book you haven't read since you were high school-aged." It's just a reading challenge, I should really just relax, etc. etc.
Anywho, when I was trying to think back to books I enjoyed a lot but not to the extent I kept obsessively re-reading them post-age-18, I came up with a lot of titles by Lloyd Alexander. Seriously, fellow nerds, raise your hand if you grew up on Lloyd Alexander, master of the lighthearted fantasy that could get unexpectedly dark towards the end (seriously, all I remember of The Kestrel is a feeling of despair).
Lloyd Alexander was great. One of the things that made him great was that, even writing in the sixties, seventies and eighties, he wrote heroines who were bright, stubborn, frequently uncooperative and with agendas that rarely if ever included "make the hero feel strong and superior." Actually, the heroines usually started out by thinking their heroes were idiots, and they weren't shy about telling them so.
The Illyrian Adventure is the first in the Vesper Holly series. Vesper is an adolescent Philadelphian at the end of the nineteenth century who is equal parts Sherlock Holmes, Indiana Jones and teenage girl. She's self-assured, extremely bright, stubborn, oblivious to certain social niceties, and an intrepid explorer. She also plays the banjo and will eat anything. As viewed through the eyes of the narrator, her guardian Brinnie (an obvious homage to Conan Doyle's Dr. Watson), she appears to be thoroughly charming and also frustrating to those around her. She follows the traditional male action hero role by having a different love interest in each book (at least the ones I remember), and certainly has teenage girl feelings that never overwhelm her curiosity and sense of adventure. She's pretty great.
On re-reading, I still enjoyed Vesper and her adventures in Illyria, a fictional Mediterranean country. I had remembered liking the first book the best. As an adult, I will admit I found absolutely no narrative surprises (read: it was predictable) and a few cringeworthy moments: for example, when Vesper insisted that she and her guardian must be welcome at a festival they've been told is for the villagers only, no outsiders allowed. It's funny when Vesper enters a foreign country and bosses kings and rebellious leaders into making the right decisions, less funny when she wants to intrude on something ordinary people would like to keep private. I'm sure I missed that part when I first read this, and today's kids would probably miss it, too. Of course, I don't think I understood what "colonialism" meant back then, either.
Overall, though, lots of fun to be had, and it is always nice to see a teenage girl doing the intrepid adventuring. Thinking about it I'm a little surprised Vesper never hit the big screen, because her adventures are pretty film-friendly. I guess now we've had Lara Croft and all that, the moment has passed, but Vesper - whose scandalous clothing is "pantaloons" rather than short shorts - came first.
Popsugar 2016 Reading Challenge: A book you haven't read since high school.
This item on the reading challenge gave me a bit of a Moment. I didn't go to high school. The only way I could possibly fulfill it would be if I managed to find a Driver's Ed manual, because that was the only book I ever read "when I was in high school." And who wants to read a Driver's Ed manual, even the first time?
Then I lightened up and decided to just go ahead and interpret this item as "a book you haven't read since you were high school-aged." It's just a reading challenge, I should really just relax, etc. etc.
Anywho, when I was trying to think back to books I enjoyed a lot but not to the extent I kept obsessively re-reading them post-age-18, I came up with a lot of titles by Lloyd Alexander. Seriously, fellow nerds, raise your hand if you grew up on Lloyd Alexander, master of the lighthearted fantasy that could get unexpectedly dark towards the end (seriously, all I remember of The Kestrel is a feeling of despair).
Lloyd Alexander was great. One of the things that made him great was that, even writing in the sixties, seventies and eighties, he wrote heroines who were bright, stubborn, frequently uncooperative and with agendas that rarely if ever included "make the hero feel strong and superior." Actually, the heroines usually started out by thinking their heroes were idiots, and they weren't shy about telling them so.
The Illyrian Adventure is the first in the Vesper Holly series. Vesper is an adolescent Philadelphian at the end of the nineteenth century who is equal parts Sherlock Holmes, Indiana Jones and teenage girl. She's self-assured, extremely bright, stubborn, oblivious to certain social niceties, and an intrepid explorer. She also plays the banjo and will eat anything. As viewed through the eyes of the narrator, her guardian Brinnie (an obvious homage to Conan Doyle's Dr. Watson), she appears to be thoroughly charming and also frustrating to those around her. She follows the traditional male action hero role by having a different love interest in each book (at least the ones I remember), and certainly has teenage girl feelings that never overwhelm her curiosity and sense of adventure. She's pretty great.
On re-reading, I still enjoyed Vesper and her adventures in Illyria, a fictional Mediterranean country. I had remembered liking the first book the best. As an adult, I will admit I found absolutely no narrative surprises (read: it was predictable) and a few cringeworthy moments: for example, when Vesper insisted that she and her guardian must be welcome at a festival they've been told is for the villagers only, no outsiders allowed. It's funny when Vesper enters a foreign country and bosses kings and rebellious leaders into making the right decisions, less funny when she wants to intrude on something ordinary people would like to keep private. I'm sure I missed that part when I first read this, and today's kids would probably miss it, too. Of course, I don't think I understood what "colonialism" meant back then, either.
Overall, though, lots of fun to be had, and it is always nice to see a teenage girl doing the intrepid adventuring. Thinking about it I'm a little surprised Vesper never hit the big screen, because her adventures are pretty film-friendly. I guess now we've had Lara Croft and all that, the moment has passed, but Vesper - whose scandalous clothing is "pantaloons" rather than short shorts - came first.