White House Autumn: Meg Powers, #2 -- Ellen Emerson White

I have this problem.

When I love something -- I'm talking love-with-the-very-fiber-of-my-being-love -- and I know that that something has a very definite end in sight, I start avoiding THE END.  Cases in point:  I have not watched Season Five of Six Feet Under.  I have not watched Season Three of Deadwood.  I have not watched the last three episodes of The Wire.  I have not finished Season Seven of Buffy.  I haven't watched the Extras Christmas Special.  I have not read Sayers' short stories about Lord Peter.  I have not finished Octavian II. 

The list goes on.  It's pathetic.  I know that.

But my fear of physical pain is greater than my freakish dislike of finishing beloved stories.  So I read White House Autumn, which brings me one step closer to finishing the Meg Powers series.  Which devastates me.  But, it'll keep me from getting beat up by my little sister, who really did threaten me with violence if I didn't HAND THE BOOK OVER soon*. 

Of course, after I read it, I started procrastinating about writing this post.  Because, as with the first book, everything I have to say is a big gushy gush of gushing praise.  I loved this book.  I love Meg Powers.  For sure, I've always had a soft spot for Angry Girls.  But Meg is special.  My angry girls have always been Mary Lennox and Meg Murry.  I've met many others over the years, but they were always the pinnacle.  Well, now the Pair has become the Triumvirate.  I don't say that lightly -- there are a whole lot of years that separate my discovery of the two Megs.  (Mary came first.)

But it isn't just Meg.  I love her family, her friends (BETH!), the people who work at the White House.  I love Ellen Emerson White for bringing me this story.  I love Feiwel & Friends for saving these books from their dreaded (and fricking tragic -- how could that have happened to begin with?) Out of Print status.

In White House Autumn, Meg and her family have settled in -- as much as possible -- to life in the White House.  To life with magazine interviews and reporters everywhere and never being alone, because there're always Secret Service guys around.  But then there's an attempt on the President's life.  And the Powers family needs to find a way to survive the press, the fear, the grief and each other as they wait to see if Katherine Powers will live.

I can't really say anything that I haven't already said or that is just, basically, me jumping up and down and shaking the book at you while chanting READITREADITREADITBECAUSEILOVEITLOVEITLOVEIT. 

So, yeah.  READ IT.  BECAUSE I LOVE IT.

But read The President's Daughter first.

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Previously:

1.  The President's Daughter

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*Along with the not-wanting-to-finish-thing, I also don't like to loan my books out if I haven't read them yet.  I know that the second the book leaves my sight, I'll want to read it.  And what if something happens to it and every other copy on the planet somehow simultaneously vanishes?  Then I'd NEVER get to read it.  Welcome to my brain.  It's a frightening place.

Comments

[tanita]

Hee!
Not laughing at you, um, this is with you, since we have remarkably similar er...issues. There's no way anyone gets the loan of a book I haven't yet read. And I slow waaaaay down at the last book of a series... which I am doing right now. It's just sort of funny (in a disturbing way) to have someone write down the neurosis so... succinctly.

But, well done and all.

[Elizabeth]

Re: Buffy's last season: sadly, I can't say I think you're missing much. And it might pain you more to stretch it out so long and feel the bitter disappointment not only of its end, but also of the quality, or lack thereof, of said end. But perhaps that's just me.

[EFM]

i read the first book only because of your recommendation. i thought it was okay...a bit better than okay, actually. somewhere between okay and i liked it. anyway, i decided not to spend any more precious and limited book money on the rest of the series, but now you actually have me wanting to buy the next one. darn you!

[Angie]

I can't heap enough praise on EEW. This series rocks. But don't worry, the last one is so deliciously, wonderfully long you get to savor it for a long time.

I forget, have you read THE ROAD HOME yet?

[LaurieA-B]

Your failure to mention Preston only highlights how much you are secretly in love with him (like the rest of us).

[Emily]

I've owned The President's Daughter forever, always liked it, always figured it was just some random, not-so-well-known book that wound up in my collection and therefore I read it over and over, I've never heard anyone else mention it...And I never knew there was a SEQUEL! Let alone a SERIES! I am so excited to go find the others - thank you for enlightening me!

[OLP]

The next two, you WILL have to slow down. It's a lot to take in.

I love these books, too.

[Kate F.]

GOOD GOD, take the "Lord Peter" collection home IMMEDIATELY. If you've read Busman's Honeymoon and those godawful newly written ripoffs, you have only joy to find between those covers. There are two stories at the end that take place after Busman's Honeymoon but other than that they go back to the very beginning of the novels and take place throughout them and they are FABULOUS. OMG. Please report back afterwards? I totally know the avoiding-the-end feeling but in this case you'll just reread them all next year anyway so it's no loss! Gah! "The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey"!! "The Man with the Copper Fingers"!!! (Sayers channels "The Speckled Band") A fantastic story about nephew Gherkins as a 9-year-old (or so). The anthology is how I get people to fall in love w/ Lord Peter if they've been deprived thus far.

[Gina]

What Kate said!

And also, would you please send your little sister over? I need someone to beat me into finishing a few things, myself.

[Kelly]

I'll read The President's Daughter, but OMG YOU HAVE TO FINISH WATCHING BUFFY. Seriously. If it helps, season #8 is out in comic book form, so finishing season 7 isn't really the end!

[Kailana]

My brain is sort of the same, so I can understand where you are coming from!

[Laza]

I might have to threaten you with violence if you don't finish watching Six Feet Under! That show has the best series finale ever made EVER. I cried like it was real. It was so amazing. omg

[Melissa]

The next Meg book is going to break your heart. The fourth will put it back together...a little.

I think that season 7 of Buffy needs to be watched fairly quickly, so that the weak spots (of which there are many) get glossed over.

[emmaco]

It's so nice to find all you other freaky people who slow down or save up last books too. For me this tendency is balanced by the irrational fear of being struck down dead and then never getting to read the book :)

[Jaydubs]

Oh. WOW. I loved The President's Daughter so much that years later, I still find myself quoting it (only in my head: I spare others the pain). Meg was always a hero to me, and the book was up there with The Obnoxious Jerks as books that I read and re-read until the pages started falling out of the cheap paperback spine. I read the follow up (forgetting the name), and, while it was a bit too dark to make it me love it as much as the first, I always hoped there'd be more -- I can't believe there's a series! I will be scurrying off to the bookstore momentarily.

As to the TV bit, I have a problem, especially when it comes to TV on DVD/DVR, where I will gorge myself on a series at first and then go verrrry sloooowly at the end. I did that with Undeclared, Six Feet Under, Angel and am still doing that with Gilmore Girls, the last few episodes of which still sit on my DVR three years(ish) after the series conclusion. It is a problem.

Anyway, I came to your blog in search of the VC Andrews recap mentioned on www.poundy.com, but I am THRILLED to have read on. YAY.

(Sorry, coffee + fangirl excitement does ugly things to me.)

[Jaydubs]

Oh, crap. Just realized that I've read this one--the new school cover threw me for a loop. It's the last one I'm missing (and no wonder: I think I last looked for it in the early 2000s--I didn't know I should expect an 18-year gap in the series! So, OK, getting the last one now. Still excited, even though I had hopes for *multiple* books to read.