Reviews with content warning for Death - The Second Mrs. Astor

I really enjoyed the prose of this! Definitely don’t recommend if you can’t/don’t want to set aside the crazy age gap, but if you’re a historical fiction person this was really lovely! And really sad obviously :( wah.

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leweylibrary's review

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I did enjoy it, but I know this is one that a lot of other people would probably find really boring and tedious. From the synopsis, I did think it was going to focus more on what happened after the Titanic, not everything single thing in excruciating detail leading up to it. Also be warned there's two sad dog-related parts 🥺 This really made me want to watch The Titanic 🤷‍♀️😅😂

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abigailgrims's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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oceanwriter's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

As someone who loves 20th Century history, I've read so little about the Titanic. This is possibly the first book I've read where the sinking was so heavily involved. It was a great place to start.

Shana Abé's writing is beautiful. She captured Madeline's voice wonderfully and I liked how the narration was set up with her addressing her son. It made the story feel so much more personal. It did take me a little while to get into it, but the book's second half picks up nicely.

The Titanic wasn't involved as much as I'd assumed and hoped. The focus is more on Madeleine and Jack's relationship which leads up to them boarding the ship. From there, the story takes on a lot of emotions and tragedy. Though it was devastating reading through the shipwreck, this was my favorite part of the book and the slow beginning ended up adding so much to this portion of the story.

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em8ly's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

Monthly book club book. I am not a romance reader so through all the first 200 pages, I felt like I was trudging through it, feeling like I wanted to out it down the whole time. By the time I got halfway through, the Titanic finally entered and it was downhill from there. We know from the beginning of the book that the husband dies, the wife lives, and goes on to have their baby..... so I knew the ending of the book anyways. We all know the story of the Titanic and the lives lost... so none of that was new to me, just incredibly depressing. It took me about 8 days to read the first 200 pages and then I read the remainder of the book in one night, just to get it over with (I really am not a fan of reading about the titanic, especially if children are concerned. It gives me nightmares). Not my favorite.

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julianalo's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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