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Original poster

Anyone want to talk about Five Wounds with me? (warning: contains spoilers)

62 replies

JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 10:36

I know at least a few of us are reading this, so I figured we could do with a thread. If you're not reading it, it's Tudor historical fiction and it's here. It's marketed as YA, if such things matter to you.

Disclaimer: this is one of my favourite historical periods and (as people on the Wolf Hall threads know) I can bang on about it forever. But I bloody loved this book and am only slightly disappointed I haven't yet found any historical bits to quibble over. I did try quite hard.

Soooo .... I'll just sit here twiddling my thumbs until you all rock up, shall I?

OP posts:

JeanneDeMontbaston · 23/03/2015 19:26

Hmm. I wonder if the nun thing was commitment, so much as being quite devout and having had this experience of a woman-only space that was so much nicer than her nasty dad? I am quite into the idea of monasteries as good spaces for women, though.

I didn't get the sense she was painted as being devoutly chaste from the outset, but more than the monastery is a life she can see herself living, with options to be a certain kind of person like her aunt?

FertileUrkel · 23/03/2015 19:20

I couldn't square the heroine's commitment to being a nun with her subsequent romantic actions nor, more acutely, her various romantic actions. I can see she would like the son but not how she would suddenly love the father as well, also he was so much older.

She'd been locked in a convent though for 10 years, she'd have had no one to fall for previous to this point. As to the varied men she fell for, I think that comes with being 15! I'm not sure we was supposed to be in love with the father though, just see him as someone she could love, and loved as a person.

YonicScrewdriver · 23/03/2015 19:17

Ok. Spoilers ahoy, the warning has been up long enough!

I loved the history, loved the female characters like the gran and the sister. They were very real to me.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 23/03/2015 18:56

I know she's reading too, but I imagine authors do read their reviews. I think it would be odd if we didn't discuss it properly?

YonicScrewdriver · 23/03/2015 18:52

I would like a sequel.

I liked it a lot. I'm conscious the author is reading so don't know if it's cricket fives to mention one or two bits that made me uncomfortable...?

JeanneDeMontbaston · 23/03/2015 18:46

I'm really hoping, alex! I want to know what happens to May.

OhGove, I think we can? MNHQ put a spoiler warning in the title for me.

alexpolistigers · 23/03/2015 11:43

Would anyone else like to see a sequel?? I would! Come on Katharine, get writing!

OhGoveUckYourself · 23/03/2015 11:04

I have read it (thanks for the chance to do that Katharine!) and reviewed it on Goodreads and Amazon. I think it is extremely well written and will get back to this discussion when we can do so without worrying about spoilers.

ChopperGordino · 22/03/2015 10:42

I am only a few chapters in but am hooked! Really good characterisations

FrenchFriedHamster · 22/03/2015 08:47

I'm really rubbish at reviews of books, but I have to say I loved it. So well written, brilliant characters, it felt very real to me and to someone who knows very little of the history of the time it made me want to go and find out more.

I'd say it was totally appropriate for a 13 year old Imperial.

alexpolistigers · 20/03/2015 09:39

I have never seen Wolf Hall, so I can't comment on that, but you are right about the politics of religion. The fact that Christianity was politicised and there was an enormous power struggle often eclipses (I've been dying to slip that word in somewhere!) the fact that people really did believe, it wasn't just something forced on them.

I thought that was dealt with very well in Five Wounds, especially with the holy relic angle and its perceived power.

YonicScrewdriver · 19/03/2015 23:26

Yes that's true. And so certain - that the good results had come from holding relics etc, just as embedded as a truth as we'd now say it was good care and hygeine

Original poster

JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 23:12

Yes. And it's a mindset that is so hard to imagine, but it never sits quite right with me when it's just explained away.

I especially liked with this, that women's piety/religious experience was differentiated from men's, not just seen as some ancillary or more basic experience (which, again, it really is in the TV version of Wolf Hall).

OP posts:

YonicScrewdriver · 19/03/2015 23:00

Done!

Yes, ultimately The Sainted More and thousands of others died because they truly believed that would save their souls versus recanting, not (just) to piss off the king.

Original poster

JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 22:13

imperial - excellent, will do. I am holding off a bit anyway, but will ask.

alex - YY, I loved the religion too. Especially given that often, I think, novels in this era treat religion as if it were politics. Wolf Hall does a lot of this (the TV version anyway). And that makes it easier for non-religious people to relate, but it's a bit cowardly IMO.

OP posts:

YonicScrewdriver · 19/03/2015 20:30

Am enjoying it a lot this far. Nice to see Richard Riche's name popping up...

alexpolistigers · 19/03/2015 20:12

I've read it and I loved it. I thought the wealth of historical detail was fabulous, and I enjoyed the way the religion was woven into the plot

YonicScrewdriver · 19/03/2015 19:31

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00IT3YT4I/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1426793420

I've only read a few pages of the sample so far!

PuffinsAreFictitious · 19/03/2015 17:50

It's next on my reading list.

Yonic.... Chapuys bio? Linky?

Fiderer · 19/03/2015 16:08

for you Imperial. My d is 12 and she has it on her Kindle and is enjoying it. I haven't started it yet so I'll join you all again in a while

Original poster

JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 14:38

Ooh, good.

Much more fun than Chapuys.

OP posts:

YonicScrewdriver · 19/03/2015 14:37

Ok, I have bought it!

ImperialBlether · 19/03/2015 14:29

Thanks, everyone.

Will get off the thread for a few days now, if there are going to be spoilers!

OP, you might want to get MN to put something on the thread title about spoilers.

Original poster

JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 14:24

Ooh! Someone else who has read it!

So, erm ... I don't really know how to talk about it without spoilering. But I loved it too.

Would people who've not read it mind if we talked about it? If I do a big warning SPOILERS COMING UP in this post so you know?

OP posts:

SophieandHerSnail · 19/03/2015 14:20

Didn't realise it was written by a Mumsnetter, came across it on Amazon. I loved it!

Imperial sorry to hear about your dad. I think the book would be suitable for a 13 year old. I only have small kids, but when I was that age I was reading all sorts, so I don't think it is too graphic.

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