- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: iUniverse (February 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 059526882X
- ISBN-13: 978-0595268825
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.8 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 431 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,355,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
A twenty-first century woman is stranded in first century Pompeii when a time travel experiment goes awry; she is sold to a wealthy family as a house slave. This provides her with an intimate, upstairs/downstairs perspective on household life in ancient times. At first she does menial work, but she improves her situation by telling stories and making prophecies. As her influence grows, she wins the love of her master and his daughter and provokes the vengeful jealousy of his wife.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too,
By TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A.D. 62: Pompeii (Paperback)
Imagine getting stranded in Ancient Rome! That's what happens to Miranda in Rebecca East's A. D. 62: POMPEII. Miranda has never felt that she belonged in the 21st century, and when a group of researchers approach her about a short trip to the past, she agrees.Of course, things don't go as planned. First, she is sold to a wealthy family as a house slave and then her time travel device malfunctions. At first, she is resigned to a life of menial labor, but gradually tries to improve her position by telling stories and using her historical knowledge to make prophecies. Miranda cleverly changes well-known stories such as fairy tales and Shakespeare to not only inspire herself but also to champion women's and slaves' rights. As Miranda proves her value, she gains the love and trust of her master and his daughter and provokes the vicious jealousy of his wife. In this hybrid romance, history, and fantasy novel, the heroine overcomes several trials and finally finds herself a place in the world. The highlight of this book is its richly historical background. Rebecca East gives wonderful descriptions of the architecture, food, and customs of ancient Pompeii. With the exception of Miranda, the characters never seem to be modern people forced into togas, but people who live in a different culture from our own. Reviewed by: Natalie Tsang
2.0 out of 5 stars
Michael Grant is more interesting,
By A Customer
This review is from: A.D. 62: Pompeii (Paperback)
It's no wonder this book is through a vanity press. It reads like a text for Classics 101. If the characters were more real and the Miranda weren't so repetitious in what she had to say, it might have been more interesting. (...) This author automatically seems to assume that her readers must be the dumbest creatures on earth. Not everyone is a classicist but please. . . This book needs a good editor and an injection of style. There were so many points I felt like I was reading a term paper I was going to quit reading. Or it was like I was reading a bad splice of Pliny's letters,Cena Trimalchionis, and my text from my Roman Law class a couple of semesters back. Though I will say that this author did her homework. At least her facts were for the most part accurate if the story was a little less than interesting.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting concept, poor execution.,
By Hesper23 "Grad student" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A.D. 62: Pompeii (Paperback)
I was debating back and forth about whether to dish out $23 for a soft cover book, but finally my interest in Roman culture won out and I bought it. Well, I've finished reading this novel, and was not very impressed by the quality of the writing. The plotline is, as the other reviews have said, highly original. Miranda is a Harvard graduate student who reluctantly volunteers to go travel back to Roman times and soak up the culture for research. However, unlike a Michael Chrichton novel, Ms. East does not go into how the time travel technology actually works.What I found particularly irritating about this novel is the amount of repetition and over-simplification bulit into the plot and prose. For example, around p. 3 the heroine Miranda remarks that a friend commented on her "pre-Raphaelite hair". This sentence is repeated mid-way through the book, almost word for word. Likewise, the novel goes off on these tangents in which Miranda tells a fairy-tale to her rapt Roman household members. Each time, she begins with "And this how I told it:". After a while, the cumulating repetitions numbed my brain and pricked my impatience. I also found the narrator's smug attitude towards the reader irritating. Everything is dumbed-down for us. For example, Miranda speculates at one point that the nearest city is Neapolis--then, in brackets, she tells us that this is modern day Naples. Well, duh. It makes me wonder what kind of an audience Ms. East was writing for--adults? Or 7th graders? I think Ms. East demonstrates a lot of creativity in the character of Miranda, the time travel plot, and in the cast of supporting characters. However, there is a marked lack of sophistication in the quality of the prose.
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