![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book Review: Carney’s House Party
Aug. 17th, 2023 07:14 amLike Winona’s Pony Cart, Carney’s House Party is a spin-off of the main Betsy-Tacy series, written partly because Carney was a fan favorite but also (I conjecture) because the main series left her romantic plot dangling in midair.
Near the end of Carney’s sophomore year of high school, she was ripped from her best beau Larry when his family moved to California. Afterward, they kept the flame alive by writing to each other regularly this week, and Carney just can’t seem to get serious with any other boy until she sees Larry again and finds out if she still loves him.
Thus matters stand at the end of Betsy and Joe. In Carney’s House Party, set one year later, takes place the summer after Carney’s sophomore year at Vassar. She’s back in Deep Valley, throwing a house party for her college roommate and sundry Deep Valley friends (including Betsy, who shows up at a masquerade ball mid-book, where she attempts to refuse to divulge her identity - till distinctive parted front teeth give her away), when she hears that Larry’s coming back to Deep Valley for a two-week visit.
And then Larry shows up! And he’s just as nice as ever, and Carney still likes him. And, after all, it’s extremely romantic how they were ripped asunder, and wrote to each other for years, and he came all the way from California to see her… but she notices that she and Larry never seem to try to be alone together. Indeed, it occurs to her that she wouldn’t be overjoyed to be engaged to him. That, in fact, she’s beginning to feel ever so slightly trapped by the idea. He hasn’t changed, and neither has she, really. But the feeling between them has.
Also, before Larry arrived, Carney met an irritating young man named Sam… Well, you know how it is. She was a girl, he was an aggravating young man, can I make it any more obvious?
The first time I read this book, I found the Sam/Carney plot a real letdown: much more Hollywood than anything else in Lovelace. I do still feel that, particularly about the way that Sam keeps grabbing Carney and kissing her, although I do love Betsy’s advice for how to handle it: “Tell him that you’ve thought about it, and you have to break the engagement,” Betsy suggests. Of course they aren’t engaged, but the very fact that Carney has taken the kissing in that light will undoubtedly scare him off! (Of course it doesn’t, but it does force Sam to declare himself, which is almost as good.)
But this second time round, I was able to appreciate the other qualities of the book more, particularly the first few chapters at Vassar (always a sucker for a women’s college!) and the subtle character work on Larry and Carney’s break-up. I particularly appreciate the fact that there’s nothing objectively wrong with Larry; it’s just that he and Carney are no longer in love, and sometimes life is like that.
Near the end of Carney’s sophomore year of high school, she was ripped from her best beau Larry when his family moved to California. Afterward, they kept the flame alive by writing to each other regularly this week, and Carney just can’t seem to get serious with any other boy until she sees Larry again and finds out if she still loves him.
Thus matters stand at the end of Betsy and Joe. In Carney’s House Party, set one year later, takes place the summer after Carney’s sophomore year at Vassar. She’s back in Deep Valley, throwing a house party for her college roommate and sundry Deep Valley friends (including Betsy, who shows up at a masquerade ball mid-book, where she attempts to refuse to divulge her identity - till distinctive parted front teeth give her away), when she hears that Larry’s coming back to Deep Valley for a two-week visit.
And then Larry shows up! And he’s just as nice as ever, and Carney still likes him. And, after all, it’s extremely romantic how they were ripped asunder, and wrote to each other for years, and he came all the way from California to see her… but she notices that she and Larry never seem to try to be alone together. Indeed, it occurs to her that she wouldn’t be overjoyed to be engaged to him. That, in fact, she’s beginning to feel ever so slightly trapped by the idea. He hasn’t changed, and neither has she, really. But the feeling between them has.
Also, before Larry arrived, Carney met an irritating young man named Sam… Well, you know how it is. She was a girl, he was an aggravating young man, can I make it any more obvious?
The first time I read this book, I found the Sam/Carney plot a real letdown: much more Hollywood than anything else in Lovelace. I do still feel that, particularly about the way that Sam keeps grabbing Carney and kissing her, although I do love Betsy’s advice for how to handle it: “Tell him that you’ve thought about it, and you have to break the engagement,” Betsy suggests. Of course they aren’t engaged, but the very fact that Carney has taken the kissing in that light will undoubtedly scare him off! (Of course it doesn’t, but it does force Sam to declare himself, which is almost as good.)
But this second time round, I was able to appreciate the other qualities of the book more, particularly the first few chapters at Vassar (always a sucker for a women’s college!) and the subtle character work on Larry and Carney’s break-up. I particularly appreciate the fact that there’s nothing objectively wrong with Larry; it’s just that he and Carney are no longer in love, and sometimes life is like that.
