#20: Gladwell, _Blink_;#21: Thomas, _Not Quite a Husband_

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

#20: Malcolm Gladwell, Blink

Gladwell examines how human beings process information to make decisions and how split-second decisions (made in a "blink", by a process he calls "thin-slicing") differ from decisions made at more length. It's certainly on the anecdotal and episodic side, feeling rather like a set of magazine articles pulled together, but it's generally an interesting read nonetheless.

Gladwell looks at both the good and bad sides of thin-slicing: on one hand, an art forgery is correctly detected by experts making quick judgments, but on the other, cops in the Bronx make a tragically wrong snap judgment based on race and kill an innocent victim. In fact, I thought the parts about race and unconscious prejudice were the best in the book, and I liked Gladwell's conclusion: that it's our responsibility not only to acknowledge making these judgments, but also to act to fix the inequities caused by them.


#21: Sherry Thomas, Not Quite a Husband

Pursuing her life calling as a doctor in India in the late nineteenth century, Bryony Asquith believes she has left behind her failed marriage and her ex-husband, Leo Marsden. When Leo shows up unexpectedly to bring an appeal from her sister to return to England and their ailing father, Bryony feels compelled to go with Leo. Their journey home is much more dangerous than they thought it would be, though: in addition to confronting a revolt, they must confront the deep emotions which led to the break-up of their marriage.

I really loved Leo and Bryony (especially Bryony) and their justifiably messed-up relationship, and as in previous books, Thomas handles the flashback structure very well. There were a lot of things I didn't like, though, and they almost overcame what I did. There's a particular element to their past sexual relationship I found troubling, and I couldn't tell if Thomas meant it to be problematic or not, because Bryony and Leo never really address it. Also, I was very disappointed that the book is set almost entirely in India, yet there are no Indian characters (save for a couple of soldiers). Also also, the romance is resolved about three-quarters of the way through, yet the book keeps going; the last part in England just seemed completely unnecessary to me.

Thomas' characters always seem to pull me through her weak plotting, but I do hope the next book is better in that department (which I think is what I said about her first two books, unfortunately).

Comments

[deepad]

I have no idea what period the Sherry Thomas book is set in, but I just wanted to comment that even if the characters called it a 'rebellion' or 'mutiny', we use the term "revolt of 1857", or even according to some historians, the first war of Independence.

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

The book is set in 1897, in the Malakand region; Thomas refers to the events as "uprisings" in her afterword. The characters use "mutiny", I think, which I did want to avoid, though I hadn't realized that "rebellion" might not be an appropriate word to use nor how important the word choice is there. Thank you for pointing that out.