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3.3 AVERAGE
3.3 AVERAGE
I don’t do a lot of reviews, but I read what people had said about this before I opened it and I found that I thoroughly disagreed with most of them. I binged this book hard, and as a material culture historian of the 19th century, the little details are so thoroughly researched it’s wonderful.
Anyway, if you’re in the fence, give it a shot, you might just love it like me.
Anyway, if you’re in the fence, give it a shot, you might just love it like me.
"Historical Romance," which is not romance-y enough to leave a romance fan satisfied and not historical enough to keep a historical fiction person entertained.
Cora Cash is an absurdly air-headed and selfish wealthy heiress from New England (1890s) thanks to her grandfather/father's flour empire. Everyone starts off attending parties and society things in New York and Newport and then her grasping/society-climbing-mother's goals are to make her some sort of titled bride and they all run off to England/Europe before Cora accidentally gets hitched to fellow-society-member Teddy (Van Der Leyden, who is, of course, not rich and doesn't want money! Oh, youth) - who runs off to be a painter anyway.
Cora meets manipulative-asshat-Ivo, who happens to be a Duke, and they marry (because lurve), and he proceeds to treat her like trash. He likes the money she brings because his moldering estate can be livened back up, and proclaims love for her while treating her badly and lying to her face. There's "mystery" of a sort (a great secret everyone in England knows about, of course) and then a very rushed ending where everyone is AOK (except for the reader, who is utterly unsatisfied). Teddy is left holding the bag, so to speak at the end of the novel, lest you think that this is a cliff hanger. Nope, just unsatisfying.
There's a B plot with Bertha, Cora's woman-of-color maid who starts to see manipulative-asshat-#2, Jim, who is Ivo's manservant (like duke, like manservant?). There is some interesting flavor with the differences she sees in how she is treated in England vs America because of her skin color, but we don't go too deep into that.
This book is very slow moving, you get plenty of descriptives for clothing and art work, and elites joshing with elites. If you screen played it, you could make it into a tidy 2 hour BBC/Masterpiece theatre special, and it very much has that vibe of "watching rich people be rich in a historic period. "
Cora Cash is an absurdly air-headed and selfish wealthy heiress from New England (1890s) thanks to her grandfather/father's flour empire. Everyone starts off attending parties and society things in New York and Newport and then her grasping/society-climbing-mother's goals are to make her some sort of titled bride and they all run off to England/Europe before Cora accidentally gets hitched to fellow-society-member Teddy (Van Der Leyden, who is, of course, not rich and doesn't want money! Oh, youth) - who runs off to be a painter anyway.
Cora meets manipulative-asshat-Ivo, who happens to be a Duke, and they marry (because lurve), and he proceeds to treat her like trash. He likes the money she brings because his moldering estate can be livened back up, and proclaims love for her while treating her badly and lying to her face. There's "mystery" of a sort (a great secret everyone in England knows about, of course) and then a very rushed ending where everyone is AOK (except for the reader, who is utterly unsatisfied). Teddy is left holding the bag, so to speak at the end of the novel, lest you think that this is a cliff hanger. Nope, just unsatisfying.
There's a B plot with Bertha, Cora's woman-of-color maid who starts to see manipulative-asshat-#2, Jim, who is Ivo's manservant (like duke, like manservant?). There is some interesting flavor with the differences she sees in how she is treated in England vs America because of her skin color, but we don't go too deep into that.
This book is very slow moving, you get plenty of descriptives for clothing and art work, and elites joshing with elites. If you screen played it, you could make it into a tidy 2 hour BBC/Masterpiece theatre special, and it very much has that vibe of "watching rich people be rich in a historic period. "
Review Originally Appeared on Reflections of a Book Addict: http://wp.me/p18lIL-2vP
This book frustrated the hell out of me. Nothing about any of the main characters endeared me to them at all. Cora is totally naive and aloof, Ivo has a bi-polar personality, Bertha has no mind of her own, and the whole story takes WAY too long to come to a resolution. When I finished the book I scratched my head and wondered what the point of it all was. The last chapter gave me a small amount of insight into Ivo's head, but at that point it was too little too late. Every time he affected Cora in a negative manner there was never a resolution. For example, he leaves her for most of her pregnancy to go to India, returns to England many months later but doesn't tell Cora, which angers her. Nothing is ever said between Cora and Ivo about this or about him not showing up until the birth of their child. Their relationship is so dysfunctional because of the lack of communication, and by the end of the novel that problem still isn't really resolved.
Final Thoughts: The character development is so poor that you can't appreciate any of the "world" that's built (when I say "world" I mean the setting: the estates, the art, the fashions, etc.) It's a shame because Goodwin's writing had promise. The story she created had a great premise, it was just poorly executed.
This book frustrated the hell out of me. Nothing about any of the main characters endeared me to them at all. Cora is totally naive and aloof, Ivo has a bi-polar personality, Bertha has no mind of her own, and the whole story takes WAY too long to come to a resolution. When I finished the book I scratched my head and wondered what the point of it all was. The last chapter gave me a small amount of insight into Ivo's head, but at that point it was too little too late. Every time he affected Cora in a negative manner there was never a resolution. For example, he leaves her for most of her pregnancy to go to India, returns to England many months later but doesn't tell Cora, which angers her. Nothing is ever said between Cora and Ivo about this or about him not showing up until the birth of their child. Their relationship is so dysfunctional because of the lack of communication, and by the end of the novel that problem still isn't really resolved.
Final Thoughts: The character development is so poor that you can't appreciate any of the "world" that's built (when I say "world" I mean the setting: the estates, the art, the fashions, etc.) It's a shame because Goodwin's writing had promise. The story she created had a great premise, it was just poorly executed.
DNF: I just didn't enjoy this. Cora was spoiled, her mother was self centered and a new POV each section was giving me a headache....
I really hated the ending. Really , truly hated it.
Back to her other book Victoria.
Back to her other book Victoria.
One of the things I find odd about Goodread's star rating system is that a score of 2/5 is still somewhat positive to neutral. So I'm going with the "It was OK" rating of 2 starts for this book, because it really was just OK.
I was really expecting to like this book. It is hailed as something that would entertain fans of Downton Abbey between seasons of the show. However if one is to compare this book to Downton Abbey (however an unfair comparison it may be) it really does fail to hold a candle, and makes me want to go and read everything Julian Fellowes has ever written.
The story started off quite interestingly enough and the author certainly did quite a lot of research (I would expect nothing less from a History degree from Cambridge) but when it comes to driving the plot I really expect more out of characters. I was poised to throw the book across the room if the leading man again said that Cora, being an American, just didn't understand their English way of doing things and then ran away like a sulky child making absolutely no effort to explain the English way of doing things that he expected her to just magically know about.
*somewhat of a spoiler alert*
The husband is angry and runs away for nearly 7 months (somewhat due to a business trip) mainly because of a tiff with his wife (over a cultural misunderstanding) and when he returns he explains at the climactic moment at the end, that he realized that she couldn't have been culpable for the aforementioned tiff because, well, she didn't understand their English way of doing things.
Ugh.
And even though he used her terribly as a pawn to make his former lover jealous and miserable, he really DID... I mean... DOES love her. Plus he wanted to make his (I swear she's former!) lover miserable and jealous, not because he still loves her, but because he hates her! All the recent flirting was just salt in the wound I swear! So clearly the wife should just forgive everything because he has decided he loves her... for now.
Double Ugh.
Anyway, it wasn't all bad. Although if I can return to the Downton Abbey comparison once more, one of the things really lacking in this book is the attention to the servants. Oh sure, they're mentioned. But many of them aren't given names, merely mentioned by their job position. Cora's maid is given a few paltry chapters, but she is the only major character of non-white descent and it is clear from early chapters that her moral fiber is pretty thin. The man she is interested in is just as much of an idiot as Cora's husband, but it is magically fixed in the last chapter.
I really don't care if adults acting like whiny children is or could be historically accurate, I don't like reading books about adults acting like whiny children.
On the plus side there are lots of sparkly jewels and fluffy dresses.
I was really expecting to like this book. It is hailed as something that would entertain fans of Downton Abbey between seasons of the show. However if one is to compare this book to Downton Abbey (however an unfair comparison it may be) it really does fail to hold a candle, and makes me want to go and read everything Julian Fellowes has ever written.
The story started off quite interestingly enough and the author certainly did quite a lot of research (I would expect nothing less from a History degree from Cambridge) but when it comes to driving the plot I really expect more out of characters. I was poised to throw the book across the room if the leading man again said that Cora, being an American, just didn't understand their English way of doing things and then ran away like a sulky child making absolutely no effort to explain the English way of doing things that he expected her to just magically know about.
*somewhat of a spoiler alert*
The husband is angry and runs away for nearly 7 months (somewhat due to a business trip) mainly because of a tiff with his wife (over a cultural misunderstanding) and when he returns he explains at the climactic moment at the end, that he realized that she couldn't have been culpable for the aforementioned tiff because, well, she didn't understand their English way of doing things.
Ugh.
And even though he used her terribly as a pawn to make his former lover jealous and miserable, he really DID... I mean... DOES love her. Plus he wanted to make his (I swear she's former!) lover miserable and jealous, not because he still loves her, but because he hates her! All the recent flirting was just salt in the wound I swear! So clearly the wife should just forgive everything because he has decided he loves her... for now.
Double Ugh.
Anyway, it wasn't all bad. Although if I can return to the Downton Abbey comparison once more, one of the things really lacking in this book is the attention to the servants. Oh sure, they're mentioned. But many of them aren't given names, merely mentioned by their job position. Cora's maid is given a few paltry chapters, but she is the only major character of non-white descent and it is clear from early chapters that her moral fiber is pretty thin. The man she is interested in is just as much of an idiot as Cora's husband, but it is magically fixed in the last chapter.
I really don't care if adults acting like whiny children is or could be historically accurate, I don't like reading books about adults acting like whiny children.
On the plus side there are lots of sparkly jewels and fluffy dresses.
I haven't looked to try and figure out how much the author took advantage of the popularity of Downton Abbey, but with a protagonist named Cora I have my suspicions. not to say I didn't enjoy it - I certainty did. The heiress in question, Cora, marries an English duke, and the novel follows through the birth of their first child. We see as she goes from struggling with her mother to sparring with her mother in law, all the while trying to navigate an entirely new, and more codified, social scene. Overall a very enjoyable read.