Reviews - The Buccaneers | The StoryGraph

176 reviews for:

The Buccaneers

Angela Mackworth-Young, Edith Wharton

3.71 AVERAGE

illy_29's review against another edition

2.5

emotional lighthearted slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

hannahrose_cox's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

lanalabonita's review against another edition

3.0

inspiring tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

alinefigueira's review against another edition

3.5

the "ending" gives off anna karenina vibes... read cause of the TV show, and I don't regret it, it served it's meaning: a period drama with TEA HONEEEY

melanied01's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous challenging hopeful informative lighthearted reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jrc2011's review against another edition

5.0

I really enjoyed reading this book and found it to be a very fast read. I was interested in it because I watched the BBC dramatization - which was heavily Americanized & modernized as it turns out. My chief exposure to Edith Wharton was the very short and quite depressing "Ethan Frome." I found that to be written in quite an impenetrable style and was turned off of her for years - until I saw the film and came across a copy of the book in a used bookstore.

The way she writes in "The Buccaneers" is really fantastic - she manages to show things from the perspectives of different characters - even going into the point of view of a particular character for an entire chapter. Sadly, she died before she finished this and another author finished off the book based on her notes.

I much prefer the book to the film because it is really of a cloth with the way Edith Wharton talks about the values and interactions of these social classes. I even found it interesting how she referenced changing clothing styles (I could hear the old ladies saying "young girls these days!! pantalettes? oh dear!").

Her character development was really fantastic - I got a very clear sense of who these people were and their motivations, how they spoke and behaved. Such a better story than what the film presented!

brampton's review against another edition

2.0

Marion Mainwaring did a good job editing and re-ordering the first three quarters of this book (and bowdlerizing it apparently) and I question if it was necessary to write the rest. I had read somewhere that Nan was going to end up in Greece with her lover, and when I got to the end of Wharton's original text I felt it was sufficiently wrapped up with a nice sort of ambiguity that suggested what was going to happen without spelling it out. It was as if Wharton wrote a closing passage because she knew she wouldn't get to finish the book. I'm only sorry I did.
I found eventually I had to keep a list of characters as they all went by so many names and titles and owned various city houses and country estates it was hard to keep track of who was who and where.