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    Queens of All the Earth
    Queens of All the Earth
    Queens of All the Earth
    Ebook184 pages2 hours

    Queens of All the Earth

    By Hannah Sternberg

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    As her freshman classmates move into dorms at Cornell University, Olivia Somerset suffers a nervous breakdown. Big sister Miranda decides the sisters should fly off to Barcelona for some "vacation therapy."

    When a mistake at their Barcelona hostel leaves the Somersets in a large co-ed dorm room, Olivia and Miranda are saved by kindly Mr. Brown and his son Greg. But while Olivia feels an instant connection with brooding Greg Brown, Miranda sides with fellow guest and cocky American travel writer Lenny:

    The Browns are just plain weird, and must be avoided at all costs.

    Inspired by E. M. Forster's classic novel A Room with a View, debut author Hannah Sternberg's Queens of All the Earth is a poetic journey of young love and self-awakening set against the beauty of Catalonia. Adults and teenagers alike will be riveted and moved by this literary coming-of-age novel about the conflicting hearts and minds of two very different sisters.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBancroft Press
    Release dateOct 1, 2011
    ISBN9781610880336
    Queens of All the Earth

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    Reviews for Queens of All the Earth

    3.5/5

    3 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A Room with a View is my favorite movie of all time (to date at least) and one of my favorite books, so when I saw a book on NetGalley that was all about it, I knew that it had to be. Retellings can be quite a tricky business, because, while the author needs to do something original, they also need to stay true to the nature of the original story. Sternberg has done a good job here, although clearly much has been changed, particularly the time line and the additional focus on Miranda.

      Sternberg decided to change all of the names, although some are quite similar. The story, however, can easily be compared to that of A Room with a View. Certain scenes are nearly exactly the same as those in the original, even though, all in all, the story takes a rather different trajectory and the soul searching is needed for entirely different reasons.

      There were two huge changes from the original novel. 1) There was no Cecil. Everything gets wrapped up, to the degree that things are 'wrapped up' during the time frame of the trip, whereas in the original Lucy Honeychurch (now Olivia) goes home after her trip and tries to continue living as she used to, despite having been changed by her experiences in Italy (not Spain). 2) The character of Mr. Beebe is re-envisioned as Marc Castillo, a handsome young man preparing to take orders. Marc is in no way the same character as Mr. Beebe, although I cannot say why in deference to spoilers.

      Overall, I definitely approve of what Sternberg has done here, even if I do miss some of the elements she cut and find her chapter titles a bit over the top. Ultimately, she keeps much of the spirit of the original, particularly in the characters of the Browns and Miranda (it's nice to see more depth into the Charlotte character). Lenny, too, is spot on for her counterpart, although I never did like her much. This is a brief, romantic story about two young women trying to find themselves in a beautiful, foreign landscape. Lovers of A Room with a View will likely appreciate this adaptation for its heart and obvious love for the original.
    • 4/5
      I think to understand this book to its fullest, maybe you will have to have read A Room with a View and understood E.M. Forester's intention in A Room With a View to understand how closely linked these two books are. I felt like all the characters from the Italian pensione were all there at the Spanish hostel. The sex or the names had been changed slightly, but everyone was there. And they were all appalled because a father and son gave up their room, this time, a private room, to the two sisters, without asking for anything in return. I guess I should start in the beginning. Olivia has had a psychotic break. Her father died. She wasn't close to him, he left in her childhood, but everything that she seems to hold onto or identify with seems related to her childhood. She doesn't want to make that step into adulthood, leaving home, going to college, putting away childish things. Of course, that's how the two women in her family see life. After high school, you become an adult and become responsible and you put away childish things, like freedom and imagination, and spontaneity. Her mother even threatens to throw away her childhood books which she is clinging to like a lifejacket in a hurricane. She even brings A Wrinkle in Time with her on the trip with her to Spain, she can't bear to be separated from her childhood books. Miranda is about as much fun as a box of stale crackers. She complains from the minute they get off the plane and it doesn't stop. She even complains when the affable Browns, father and son, give up their private room so the sisters don't have to sleep in a mixed dorm like room. At every turn she finds something wrong with them or agrees with something ugly the travel writer Eleanor aka Lenny says. Miranda throws her lot in with Lenny, but it really seems that no one but she can stand Lenny. Even the priest can't stand her, and Lenny can't stand him. And she has a lot to say about the Browns as well. But you know those fickle fates, what must be, must be and Olivia and Greg Brown find themselves alone together in the must unusual places. With him, Olivia still feels alive and young, her youth and childhood still lives. She can still keep her imagination and her curiosity of a child. She doesn't have to be all responsible and grown up like Miranda. Stiff and threatening. Miranda is a contradiction, one minute wanting Olivia to grow up and the next threatening to call their mother. Not exactly grown up behavior to me. Miranda could use her own psychotherapy. The point is that as the novel continues, Olivia grows increasingly uncomfortable living by Miranda's rules. She becomes surly and edgy then finally demands they fly to Africa for the last two days of their trip because it's so close. She eventually sheds the conventions of life as Miranda and her mother see it and finds her own way. The only thing that really bothered me about this novel was how heavily it borrowed from A Room With A View. The plot was almost the same with the same type of characters, even some of the same names. Even the trip at the end, was part of A Room With a View. Forester's novel was pointing out the restrictive life of Victorian England for women and how silly it all was. A single girl and her chaperone shouldn't have a room with a view simply because a man and his son had been staying in it. The conventions of that life were made up of ridiculous rules as the life of Miranda is. "I'll call mom and tell her." "Don't wander off on your own." "I hope she'll learn to care about politics. It's embarrassing." How do any of these things make a person grown up or not? I think this is definitely a novel worth reading. For all the people that didn't think anything happened, look again. Olivia grew into her own person. She shook off her fears of growing up. She didn't become her mother, or Miranda. And she found someone that understood her. I think it's an incredibly important lesson to learn, that growing up means different things to different people and we shouldn't impose our definitions of it on people. Don't color in the lines if you don't want to. Think inside the box if you want. But do it your way, don't let anyone else tell you how.
    • 3/5
      This is the first time I have compared a more contemporary novel with a paranormal. But the sisters relationship in this book really brought back the a similar situation we had between Scarlett and Rosie in Sister's Red by Jackson Pearce. One sister yearning to experience love and another sister a little overbearing with protective qualities. Although this book is minus the werewolves and action. The description really does say it all, of course that's why I include them! The plus side of the book is the writing is very descriptive and and can pull you in, making you feel like you are traveling with them experiencing the art and buildings. Some characters are very likeable and the romantic aspect between Olivia and Greg is cute.

    Book preview

    Queens of All the Earth - Hannah Sternberg

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