The Scarlet Pimpernel

*Note: Something weird happened to my last post and I keep trying to fix it. The letters aren't showing up but if you highlight it with your mouse its there. Hopefully this one turns out okay.  Anyway!

Book: The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy published 1903
ISBN 13: 9780451527622
How I found this book: School list (third one out of seven) 
Average Goodreads rating: 4.05 stars (out of 81,066 ratings)
My rating: 4 out 5 prickly pears 

      I'm not going to lie, I really didn't think i was going to like this book. It's set in England/ France during 1792 and focused mainly on the issue of The French Revolution. Considering the fact i'm not a history fan, I was not looking forward to an extra history lesson. However I did enjoy Les Miserables and I had to read this book anyway so why not keep an open mind? 
      
      I didn't warm up to this book until halfway through. Getting through the first half felt like I was trying to eat a cardboard box, it was bland and there was a lot of it, strange metaphor I know. The only thing I really liked from the start was the character of Lady Blakeney (or Marguarite) she is described as clever and witty, and had a bit of a sense of humor. The book starts to heat up when she is blackmailed by Chauvelin into helping find the mysterious scarlet pimpernel, a British man who sneaks French aristocrats across the border to avoid being sent to the guillotine as 'traitors'. It's hard for Lady Blakeney to decide whether or not to help because she admires the pimpernel but her brother Armand will be put at risk if she refuses. The inner conflict in her character is done well and does a lot to spice up the story. 

       Of course this book is considered a romance, and I think it was a good one. The love story between Sir Percy Blakeney and his wife (yes, they're already married when the story begins) is not overdone or cheesy *cough* yes Twilight, i'm looking at you. Marguarite and Percy used to be in love. However after she tells him that she had confessed a family of rich aristocrats as traitors to the French government (and their death) he grows distant. She tries to explain that this family almost killed her brother for falling in love with one of their daughters but he doesn't understand. 

      She begins fantasizing about the dreamy and unknown Scarlet Pimpernel, not realizing that the mysterious French outlaw actually is her husband. Even. Though. There. Are. SO MANY HINTS! I was practically yelling at her ''You're supposedly the cleverest woman in all of France! How do you not see who your own husband is!''

        By the end of the book I was fully involved in the story. When Marguarite realizes not only that Percy is the scarlet pimpernel, but Chauvelin knows this too, and is following him to France for his next rescue. Like a true heroine she decides to try and save him. In the end of course she (sort of) does. Percy is safe but he pretty much made up a plan and saved himself. But he seems to think she was to one who saved him and they repair their dysfunctional relationship! 

       I kinda made that ending sound lame but it was really sweet! The book had me worried though, since in Maugarite's head she kept saying that 'there's no way I can save him now' and 'This will be the last time he sings that song'. At the same time those statements were also clues that the exact opposite would happen, since if he did end up being killed by Chauvelin it would be too predictable of and ending. 
       
           I'm just happy I found a classic novel that doesn't end in tragedy. Once again *cough* Romeo and Juliet, like damnn Shakespeare why you gotta be such a downer bro?