Shannon Costello

You can laugh of course, and you can even cry during a good story. It doesn’t really matter because once you have turned the last page and closed the book, you will be back in your world. An hour later, the emotions you experienced while reading will be things of the distant past. Good stories draw us in, and make us care about what happens.

Sometimes the best stories are also the predictable ones. Of course Cinderella will ride off with the Prince in the end. Of course Esmeralda will die in the end of “The Hunckback of Notre Dame”, and Captain Ahab will die during his hunt for the white whale, but it does not detract from the quality of the story to know that from the beginning. I think the power in such books lies in the working out of the plot. While I have no problem in mentioning the main result in those books, I won’t discuss the specific details that make those books so powerful. You will have to read them for yourself.

And so I don’t know whether it is in spite of or because of the fact that I was able to predict the ending of this latest book by James Fenimore Cooper that I enjoyed it so much. Certainly I was involved in the story. It was clear in my mind that the man with the sinister looks was the bad guy, and that he would not get the girl. She would end up with the one we were all rooting for from the moment we first met him. It was also clear that the wealthy man who named the girl in his will would die, even though those around him cared about him so much. I cared, too. Of course I cried and cried when he did die.

Again, it was the working out of the plot that made the book interesting. I particularly enjoyed the naval battle between the French and British fleets. My sea story reading is mostly limited to C. S. Forrester and Cooper, and I don’t remember any battles between fleets, just battle between individual ships. This one was way too exciting to stop reading before the chapter was over, even though CJ was ready to turn out the lights.

The most suspenseful scene for me was the deathbed scene of Baron Wychombe. It was a different kind of suspense from the battle scene. It was more torturous. I was completely frustrated thinking that it would not work out the way I wanted it to.

I love a story that I can get involved with and care about!