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macheath's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Read on a recommendation by the fine SF writer Jo Walton. This long novel is usually shelved as a romance novel because it's concerned with the lives of women but it's not really that, it's what used to be derisorily called a "women's novel" (maybe they still are) as though the lives of women are inherently of less interest than the lives of men. Starting in the 1930s, we follow main character Judith, a girl who is enrolled in a boarding school in Cornwall when her parents move for work reasons to Singapore. As we progress through Judith's schooldays and her friendship with an upper-class family who take her in when family complications arise, World War Two begins to creep in around the edges. This is a book about the idyllic last summers of the 1930s, after which everyone's lives irrevocably changed. There is deprivation and rationing, the charming young men in Judith's social circle begin to disappear, she joins military service, and her parents and young sister, well, they are in Singapore. To her credit, Pilcher doesn't succumb entirely to nostalgia; a sexual assault occurs, and Judith comes to realize that with the wealth and privilege her adopted family enjoys also comes irresponsibility. This was really good, a vividly described and compelling doorstopper of a novel to just sink into.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Classism, War, Infidelity, and Sexual assault
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