Reviews - The Eustace Diamonds

111 reviews for:

The Eustace Diamonds

Anthony Trollope

3.8 AVERAGE

mary_juleyre's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous funny informative lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

ashleylm's review against another edition

5.0

If you haven't read Trollope before, this is a pretty good place to start. It depends on your mood--if you want high life and politics, then the Palliser series will please (and this, and the second book, are my favourites in the series), but if you prefer something a little gentler, then go for the Barchester Chronicles (and probably start with book 2).

Either way, he's a lovely writer. He's a bit like Dickens divided by Eliot multipled by 1/2 an Austen, if you can imagine that. What stands out most, for me, is he's not afraid of the occasional unhappy (or, at least, non-happy) ending. His books have that wonderful Victorian broadness of scope, are elegantly written (but not overwritten or dry, I can't read the later Henry James, not really, but Trollope's a page-turner by comparison).

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, I'm a bit more ruthless.