Welcome to Litsy!

I can confirm that this is 100% accurate. Unlike most Berkshire County weather reports. 😂😂😂

The ebook is on sale today for $1.99. I wasn‘t going to buy it, but read the blurb and realized it‘s about the time Hawthorne and Melville spent in the Berkshires, and since that‘s where I‘m from, I kind of HAD to, right?

This is the kind of book that makes me wish I were a book quitter. It had all the right elements for me to love it-historical fiction, New England setting-but it felt very overwritten to me, like it was trying too hard to mimic the style of the authors it described. At least it was free?

A perk of shopping on #SmallBusinessSaturday! An Unlikely Story was giving out FREE #blonddateswithbooks to anyone who purchased gifts or books today. I picked this blind date and received "The Whale" and am pretty excited! #HappyHolidays

A love story between Melville and Hawthorne? Yes! 50 cents from the used bookstore? Double yes!!💙🐳💙

I had no idea that Herman Melville & Nathaniel Hawthorne had a thing. A love thing. Possibly. This story is so well written and pulls from actual letters between the two star crossed men. At times, the desperation and despair feels a bit overwhelming and, at times, childish. But the story, it‘s reflections, and it‘s anchor in reality really took me on a ride that I didn‘t want to end.

Herman worried that he might be flattening the round earth of his imagination and sailing right off the edge.

He saw clearly, through Ahab‘s eyes, that the vengeful and capricious God of the Israelites was a deep Cosmic Shadow that Had created light only in order to see its own darkness.

"Must we submit eternally to male tyranny?"

I made it to 18%. Melville is swoony and obsessed to the point of creepiness. He also does not give one crap about his family which just made me want to read this story from poor Lizzie‘s point of view. Had to bail before I started disliking Melville IRL.

The whale's face says it all. One of the worst things I've ever read. Ridiculous, overwritten and not anywhere as deep as it thinks it is. Poor Melville and Hawthorne deserve better.

As an American Renaissance nerd, I love this book! Great characterizations and style, and so fun to find the actual historical references interwoven deftly with the author's invention. It's the book I wish i had written!

#readinapril #readingrecap Stats: Total: 9 (weak) Favorites: Donne Poems, The Whale, and 84 Charing Cross Road

⭐️❤️⭐️❤️⭐️❤️⭐️❤️⭐️ I LOVE THIS BOOK! It is beautifully written, romantic, sweet, painful, and good. You do not need to be as obsessed with Moby Dick as I am to find this good for your soul.

I also had to show the back: love letters. SWOON. I'm a sucker for pretty packaging.

I normally dislike hardbacks but my love for Moby Dick compelled me to pick up this treat of historical fiction about two of my literary loves: Melville and Hawthorne 💕🐳 OH I'm so excited to crack it open!

Really enjoyed this one! Loved going back in history and learning more about Melville and Hawthorne.

"Must we submit eternally to male tyranny?"
Mark Beauregard, The Whale: A Love Story
Another strange book but well written and evidently well researched. I didn't know what I was getting with this, thought the love story would have been the whale. Clearly my lit teachers didn't point me to the world's suspicions.

My dear Melville.

(And hooray for library books)

As someone who wrote her MA Thesis on Hawthorne and Melville and a firm believer in the fact that their friendship wasn't strictly hetero, I was SO excited to read this.

It's disappointing on a few levels. The "love story" is so intsalove on Melville's part that it would make YA romances blush. It's ridiculous.

AND the man reading the audiobook mispronounces Sophia Hawthorne's name THE WHOLE TIME!

So-FIE-ah NOT So-FEE-ah

Hnnnnngh... probably my most wanted book this year. The story behind Moby Dick in love notes between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. #nerdlove

In the summer of 1850, Herman Melville finds himself hounded by creditors and afraid his writing career might be coming to an end—his last three novels have been commercial failures and the critics have turned against him. In despair, Melville takes his family for a vacation to his cousin‘s farm in the Berkshires, where he meets Nathaniel Hawthorne at a picnic—and his life turns upside down.

#TBR 😱📚

DNF. I'm kinda angry about that too. I wanted to love this book, but I've been betrayed. The prose is purple (thus the purple used to outline one - of many - examples of this). It reeks strongly of RPF (real person fanfic), which is a type of fanfic I loathe. Another problem is that this is told from Melville's POV, and in this, he comes across as awful, obsessed, manipulative. Poor Hawthorne. And poor reader, bc is any of this even the truth??

The idea behind The Whale had so much potential that I have to admire Mark Beauregard for constructing a novel around it. But all its problems cannot be contained in 450 characters. I'll post a link to my Goodreads review if I can organize my thoughts coherently. In the meantime, let's appreciate the terrific book design by Christopher Silas Neal.

I really want to be liking this more than I am...

Oh lord. I am beginning to wonder if Mark Beauregard wanted to see just how ridiculous he could make his RPS and still get a major house to publish it. 😳

Currently Reading...

Pre-Birthday Book Shopping!

The Book-Buying-Ban is lifted!

A story of love and the devastating effects denied love can have on one person. Whenever I read books about authors who were not given there due in their own lifetimes it makes me incredibly sad. To think that Moby Dick was a commercial failure for Melville and today it is on school reading lists!

A true story of unfulfilled love. Heartbreaking and romantic. If you love Melville or Hawthorne, read this now. If you don't love Melville or Hawthorne, you will after you read this. I'll never look at Moby Dick the same way again. 🐳💔

My fave place to read, complete with very loyal hounds. Will curl up tonight, hopefully with a good scotch and The Whale: A Love Story. #augustofpages #bookphotochallenge. (The real challenge is taking this photo without the hounds getting up to follow me)

Gettin' started! Reading in bed while it storms outside! Kids are wondering where I am . . .

Ok, I'm sold. This is going home with @JaimitaPR and me.

Melville + Hawthorne 4 Eva 😍😍😍

First book mail from Odyssey Books first edition club! Signed copies of first editions, y'all! Thanks for the heads up, mauveandrosysky!

The plot attracts your attention from the very beginning till the last page. The turmoil of the human soul and the effect of love on it is a mystery, and Mark is trying to solve the mystery of love and how it affects the tender soul of Melville and produce Moby Dick and how Hawthorne was a catalyst.

So far this novel is beautifully written and keeps you going on.