Author:
Diane Hoh
Published: Scholastic (1998)
Number of Pages: 373
Review:
I remember stumbling upon this novel right after the big blockbuster movie Titanic hit the screens. I was not allowed to watch the movie at the time because it was rated 14A and my parents were very strict when it came to ratings (however they were very lenient when it came to novels, quite the hypocrisy I know). Not being able to watch the film when every one of my peers had seen it twice was condemning me to social outcast, thus when I saw this novel at my local bookstore I begged my mother to buy it for me, and buy it for me she did. At the time I fell in love with the plotline, the characters and the beautiful love stories that this novel entailed and I got many of my friends hooked on the novel as well. Reading it a second time reignited those feelings and for the next 3 years after I bought it (at age 12) I reread it at least once every 6 months. After moving to our new home I’d lost my copy and didn’t seek out to buy a new copy, in fact this novel completely slipped my mind until I ended up in a used bookstore and happened to find a copy of it in the Young Adult section. Needless to say I had to buy it, and buy it I did.
The novel chronicles the lives of five young adults – Katie, the beautiful Irish women who’s accompanied by Patrick and Brian in steerage, and Maxwell the dashing young artist who captures the attention of first class Elizabeth Farr - whose destinies led them to board the tragically fated Titanic. Katie boards the ship in steerage (third class) heading to America with her two childhood friends, Brian the handsome Irish bloke, and his brother Patrick who thinks that by falling in love with Katie he’s betraying his brother’s love and stealing the girl his brother fancies for himself. For Katie the ship and the move to America is the biggest adventure of her life, and embarking on this adventure with the boys she knows better than her own mother, she starts to develop feelings for Patrick, unbeknownst to Katie Patrick secretly loves her too, but his love for his brother and his pride soon sends Patrick down a path away from Katie and into anger and isolation. Elizabeth on the other hand has been cared for and waited on her entire life and never dreams or even dares to think of living any other way, until she meets Maxwell Whittaker. The man whom she once deemed as a third class citizen turns out to be a first class passenger and the son of an acquaintance of her father’s at that. Through his quirky habits, and his irritating conversations and his total lack of proper demeanour Elizabeth finds herself falling in love with this man who’s exiled himself from the community of debutantes and in doing so she awakens her own inner rebel.
Of course one of the main characters is the Titanic herself, her fate, as many people know as tragic, is pushed in the background of the novel until the last couple of chapters. The reader while reading this novel forgets that the Titanic is the ship that sinks because they’re so enthralled in the actual story of the novel to pay attention to anything else.
Reading the novel as an adult for the first time the story resonates within me a different interpretation of the text than I had reading it has a tween yet I still feel the same excitement and wonder I did as a child. Of course being older has put my perspectives on love and happiness in a more cynical and critical level than when I was a little girl hyped up on Disney romances and this idea that love can conquer all (or that the love one experiences will be exactly that found in the fairytales). So when reading Titanic I recognized it for what it really was, much like the trashy romance novels found in bookstores and drugstores alike, this novel was written to send cheap thrills and good chills down one’s spine and at the same time leave the reader desperately craving for more.
Like many romance novels the language is very simple. There are very little allusions or alliterations, very little metaphors and a solid yet focused plotline; however I’ve always said that writing simply doesn’t always insure the writing is simple. “Her knees felt as if they might buckle at any moment. But she kept her head held high and repeated to herself under her breath as she walked, ‘Not Paddy, anyone but Paddy. He’s a heartbreaker that one’” There are so many thrills and so many scenes that gave me butterflies in my stomach that even as an adult I still wanted to believe that fairytales really do come true. The love stories itself are enough to keep this novel afloat, add to it the sinking ship, and this novel very well sails into its horizon.
What I love best about this novel is the sense of suspense one feels while reading. Although predictable I still couldn’t help myself from wanting to find out when they were going to kiss for the first time, when will they tell each other they love one another, or my favourite when are they going to stop denying to themselves that they love one another. “It was all Max’s fault. He shouldn’t have been looking at her like that, shouldn’t have put his face so close to hers.” *sighs* I feel as if I’m melting into the love story that is Elizabeth and Max as I retype this quotation. I love stubborn women in romance novels, the ones who deny deny deny they have any feelings until everything becomes too overwhelming and they explode with emotions, such is the character Elizabeth and she made this novel so much more endearing and suspenseful.
I have to say that I am glad I reread this novel. Not only did it bring back so many memories of my childhood reading, it also didn’t fail to send shivers down my back even though I knew what was going to happen. I’m almost positive that if you read it for the first time you too might experience the feelings I felt and might bring back a sense of nostalgia, back to those days of innocence when you thought love was exactly like a fairytale and that there is indeed a Maxwell and a Patrick out there for everyone.
Happy Reading!!!
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