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The Godmother

de Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

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Sèrie: Godmother (1)

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465552,720 (3.69)12
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's Godmother puts a new twist in contemporary fantasy with the assertion that fairy godmothers exist here and now, and they have magical power that allows them to intervene in real-world problems. What if someone wished for a fairy godmother would help the entire city of Seattle? An overworked, overstressed social worker named Rose Samson does just that when she makes an idle wish on a mustard seed. Felicity Fortune of Godmothers Anonymous shows up to help. Rose Samson is neither fashion model beautiful nor a twit, and she happily joins forces with Felicity Fortune, a "Godmother" who demonstrates that Grimm's fairy tales are still relevant in our humdrum modern world. Fairy godmothers are on a magical budget, so every possible way they can get human beings or animals to assist one another, they will try, rather than using up their magical means. Felicity encounters many strangely familiar situations: a pretty stablehand named Cindy Ellis is mistreated by her cruel stepsisters. A rock star's daughter, scared of the supermodel she married, runs away from home and encounters seven Vietnam veterans at an encounter session and retreat. One of them might be a big bad wolf, who knows?   In all their encounters, Rose and Felicity try to blend their magical aid with realistic human initiative and social responsibility. Scarborough's fully realized settings and the humor built into the mix of magical solutions and grim reality make this work an entertaining and compelling read.… (més)
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Es mostren totes 5
I like fairy tales. I like it when they're updated or re-told. I really like it when they keep their original sharp edges.

Social worker Rose Samson doesn't believe in fairy tales or wishes. In her work she's seen too much badness to believe in happy endings. When her friend gives her a crystal pendant and tells her to make a wish on it, Rose wishes for a fairy godmother for "the whole damned city." With Felicity Fortune, Rose gets just that. She also gets a modern-day Cinderella, Snow White, and Hansel & Gretel in need of help.

The thing about fairy tales is that in their original forms many of them are grim, just like the things Rose deals with every day. There's cruelty, betrayal, kidnappings, murder, and children being harmed in all sorts of ways. This book doesn't shy away from that. Cindy's sisters are cruel to her, Sno is kidnapped, Hank and Gigi are abused. Unlike real life, or those fairy tales, this book does have a happy ending. Both Felicity's godmother magic and Rose's knowledge and skills are necessary to achieve that, and I liked that even in this [a:Elizabeth Ann Scarborough|26|Anne McCaffrey|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1190676943p2/26.jpg] kept a balance between magic and real life. And, in the end, Felicity gets to do what she likes best and give Rose a happy ending of her own. ( )
  tldegray | Sep 21, 2018 |
Not at all what I was expecting, but still a great read! The story is about a Godmother who comes to grant the wish of Rose, a Seattle social worker, to give her a hand with her caseload. In The Godmother, Scarborough suggests that many modern-day situations are variations on themes told in the fairy tales of old, though in these modern times the stories often get convoluted and mixed with other stories.

The Godmother has a lot of characters, most of them revolving in some way around our social-worker leading lady Rose and her well-intentioned but sometimes mixed-up Godmother, Felicity Fortune. Fairy tales you may recognize include Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel & Gretel, Puss In Boots, and The Magic Flute, among others. And these aren't your Disney-fied fairy tales, either - they are modern interpretations on the original gruesome and often "Grimm" tales of old.

The story is fast-paced and involving, though it could be easy to get lost in the rather large jumble of characters at play. Also, the characters are all, for the most part, very multi-faceted and well thought out, though not very deep. Or if they are deep, we don't get to see that depth. Scarborough seems to focus more on moving the action forward then fully developing her characters, which I suppose is necessary with such a large cast. Still, a great story, though at times the writing style or storyline seems to falter a bit. Also no real development of Rose, who I saw as supposed to be the main character, throughout.

If The Godmother were a movie, it would have to be rated R for language, violence, sexual explicitness, and themes of rape, incest and pedophilia. That being said, I rate it a firm 5 stars. ( )
  ElleyOtter | Nov 28, 2017 |
This felt a little like Charles de Lint in its exploration of extreme misery and child abuse overlaid with magical assistance. One thing I will say for de Lint, though, is that at least he never rubbed my face in a toddler's point-of-view scene of child rape. Thank you for that. I'm not marking that as a spoiler, because a) it was almost inevitable and b) everyone should know about that going in. I wish I had. I probably wouldn't have read it if I'd known. There unfortunately is no such actual thing as brain bleach.

Godmothers, originally fairy and now mostly humans with benefits, respond to wishes and selflessness and get involved with the unfortunate. Not all the unfortunate, of course, or even one percent. And sometimes the assistance backfires. Or is completely inept.

There are elements to probably a dozen or more fairy tales and folk tales – Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Bluebeard, and so on, with one venture into Vietnamese mythology – and they are, mostly, well integrated and nicely used; the Snow White storyline didn't make me roll my eyes once, although the Cinderella thread ended with more of a whimper than a bang. I could admire the weaving in of the stories … except for the bloody talking cat. I could not reconcile a talking cat, inherently comical, with the tone and message of the book.

In the end, the book adopts an appropriately fairy tale pretty-darn-near-happily-ever-after stance… but that, in truth, makes it a terribly sad ending. Very few of the problems are fixed – the child who was molested, for one, will never be what she might have been, and neither will her brother, and that could have and should have been prevented; the Cinderella stand-in is worse off than she was in the beginning, and the plotline did her horse no favors at all. And, on a larger scale, the dismal plot devices of poverty and violence and drugs and abuse and murder are all too real – they are present in every city (or any other gathering of human beings). There are no fairy godmothers – or if they do exist they have rigorously avoided me all my life. And while most bureaucracies are not – I don't think – quite as bad as the one depicted here as far as ill intent, they're anything but perfect, and always overwhelmed. And there isn't anyone to swan in on a cloud of rainbows and glitter to try, even ineptly, to make it any better. The final pages in particular are larded with the sort of humor heard in morgues and police stations, and … sorry, I'm not a cop or a coroner, and not so dulled to the horrors that the humor seems in any way appropriate. A child was raped; another was almost murdered three times; another was homeless and fighting for his life. Don't expect me to giggle a few pages later over a pissed-off toad.

It's one of those books that I read willingly while it was in my hand, but did not pick up eagerly; I thought about tracking down the sequels, but it's also one of those books that do not improve with being looked back on: the more thought I give it the more it irritates me and the less I want to continue in this world. So … while the writing was technically good, and the idea was … interesting, I can't say this was a successful book. It's urban fantasy, certainly, and fits best under that description, but while the representation of urban Washington State/Puget Sound area was vivid, I've seen many better urban fantasies. Despite many of the trappings, it can't qualify as escapist fantasy; there is no escape to be found here. But it's also hard to swallow as a message book (in part due to that damn cat). I'm not sure what, in the end, the point of the book was, if there was one; the moral of the story is, I suppose, to be kind to each other and not wait for magic to step in.

Problem is, no one is really listening. ( )
3 vota Stewartry | Oct 3, 2011 |
This was not wonderfully well written, and it's quite dated (early nineties technology!), but props for realistic characters, an older protagonist (and plus-sized!), no glorification of stalking, and romance as a D plot at best. I think my favorite thing was that this--unlike a lot of current urban fantasy--has no "get out of reality free" card; there are very few princes to sweep people off their feet; and stalkers and abusers are clearly called out as such. ( )
1 vota calmclam | Oct 26, 2010 |
When Rose, an overworked, overstressed, and underpaid social worker makes an unselfish wish on a mustard seed necklace, she gets more help than she bargained for in the shape of Felicity Fortune, replacement godmother to the city of Seattle. Scarborough intertwines classic themes of good and evil straight out of Grimm's fairy tales, in which only the names have been changed -- not necessarily to protect the innocent. Overall it's a creative, enjoyable read with enough scary bits to make it suitable for adults or mature teens. Scarborough doesn't shy away from grim (no pun intended) details, making the book much closer to the roots of the Grimm brothers' stories than the highly sanitized versions we read to children today. ( )
  SunnySD | Dec 12, 2007 |
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Nom de l'autorCàrrecTipus d'autorObra?Estat
Elizabeth Ann Scarboroughautor primaritotes les edicionscalculat
McGovern, TaraAutor de la cobertaautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Has d'iniciar sessió per poder modificar les dades del coneixement compartit.
Si et cal més ajuda, mira la pàgina d'ajuda del coneixement compartit.
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Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
This is dedicated with admiration, gratitude and affection to Anne McCaffery, who manages very nicely without the benefit of a wand
Primeres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Once upon a time in a beautiful city by the edge of the sea there toiled a young woman who did not believe in fairy tales.
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Cap

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's Godmother puts a new twist in contemporary fantasy with the assertion that fairy godmothers exist here and now, and they have magical power that allows them to intervene in real-world problems. What if someone wished for a fairy godmother would help the entire city of Seattle? An overworked, overstressed social worker named Rose Samson does just that when she makes an idle wish on a mustard seed. Felicity Fortune of Godmothers Anonymous shows up to help. Rose Samson is neither fashion model beautiful nor a twit, and she happily joins forces with Felicity Fortune, a "Godmother" who demonstrates that Grimm's fairy tales are still relevant in our humdrum modern world. Fairy godmothers are on a magical budget, so every possible way they can get human beings or animals to assist one another, they will try, rather than using up their magical means. Felicity encounters many strangely familiar situations: a pretty stablehand named Cindy Ellis is mistreated by her cruel stepsisters. A rock star's daughter, scared of the supermodel she married, runs away from home and encounters seven Vietnam veterans at an encounter session and retreat. One of them might be a big bad wolf, who knows?   In all their encounters, Rose and Felicity try to blend their magical aid with realistic human initiative and social responsibility. Scarborough's fully realized settings and the humor built into the mix of magical solutions and grim reality make this work an entertaining and compelling read.

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