At the end of Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, there were 16 pages full of ads for other fiction of the time. I wrote down the titles and looked to see which ones were available on Gutenberg.org. I was a little surprised how few of them were there. I then made the mistake of asking my daughter (who likes to mess with me) to pick one. Instead of picking one of the more exciting-sounding titles, she picked this one.
Aunt Jane is an elderly woman who tells tales of things she's observed over the course of her life. It's set in the old days of Kentucky, when the women were supposed to do what the men said and cook their meals, etc., so that's reflected in the topics and actions of the characters. People die young, and women are treated like property. To be fair, it wasn't just in the "olden days" that things like that happened. I experienced that in the late 90's when I visited my future husband's family in Kentucky. The "men-folk" ate first, and I felt like I'd travelled back in time.
Anyway, this book contains nine stories. I read about quilts, a woman who stood up to some men, a horse race at the fair, and some other things. What I didn't really read was the last chapter. I skimmed that one since it was literally all about flowers and gardens. I have what I term a "black thumb" where everything I try to grow immediately dies, so if Heaven is all gardens, I'm screwed.
The book made me think of what it would be like to sit down with my grandmother and listen to her tell stories of when she was younger. The problem is, I have no connection with Aunt Jane or the people she's talking about, and while her storytelling was somewhat engaging, I wasn't interested in her stories. I remember doing this with my grandmas, but the main attraction was spending time with them. Don't get me wrong, I loved their stories, but the best part was always just being with them, especially when I got older.
It wasn't all bad, though. Aunt Jane did have some real nuggets of wisdom in there. Two that stood out to me were, "Things is predestined to come to us, honey, but we're jest as free as air to make what we please out of 'em." and my personal favorite, "It's jest as wrong to be too hard on yourself as it is to be too hard on other folks." Aunt Jane may not have been my favorite book in this journey, but I'm still glad I read it.
Two closing thoughts. First, I don't know who chose this cover, but it's terrifying. And second, I'm not letting my daughter choose my books anymore! It was a decent book and pretty well written once you get used to the accent, but in general, I wouldn't want to read something like it again.
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