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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
Au reservoir: this time it really is goodbye for this is the last chronicle of Tilling, and Benson knew it. Riseholme makes a cameo appearance and it’s clear that its inhabitants have carried on much as before sans Lucia and Georgie, but it’s the Tillingites who are her bread and butter, the grist to her mill. Say what you like about the one-time Mrs Emmeline Lucas (and they so do) but she has a mind like a steel trap and the ability to spot the main chance at a hundred furlongs. Age has most definitely not wearied her, even though, in valedictorian mode, she very nearly falls at the final hurdle. A fine way to bid arrivederci to the splendid old fraud.
Not the best in the series but ultimately amazing. These are awful people but it's endless fun to read about their machinations. Sad that this was the end.
medium-paced
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/trouble-for-lucia-e-f-benson.html
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Benson's Lucia and Mapp series is always delightful and this is the last book. Lucia and Miss Mapp constantly vie for social supremacy amidst ridiculous and absurd situations. In this book, Lucia has become Mayor of their town, and must deal with her rivals, learning to ride a bicycle, the return of an opera singer/rival, and trying to befriend a forgettable duchess. As always, Lucia gets into scrapes and receives bad news, but always manages to turn it around and use it for greater social cachet. No one in this book is a necessarily a good person (aside from maybe Lucia's husband), and I wouldn't want to be friends with them, but they are super amusing to read about. There are funny lines as well as ridiculous Wodehouse-type situations. While not my favorite book of the series, it is very amusing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Classism
Minor: Colonisation
lighthearted
relaxing
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is the last of the Mapp and Lucia books, and E.F. Benson is to be applauded for not having given into any impulse to have either of the lead characters learn or grow in any way. Both end as they began: shallow, petty, self-aggrandising, willing to elbow anyone aside for the slightest sliver of social advantage. There are some deliciously awful moments in Trouble for Lucia, but I do think Benson was right to end it here—this read more like an accumulation of "and then, and then" moments than any kind of narrative, and it felt as if he'd run out of things to say about the inhabitants of Tilling.