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veethorn's review against another edition
5.0
Easily the best book I’ve read in a long time. Irresistibly funny, self-deprecating and interesting, takes almost nothing seriously except prejudice and anti-fascism, and Mitford sketches her characters so easily that I’m desperately jealous. What an autobiography.
kate_in_a_book's review against another edition
4.0
This is Jessica, or Decca’s, memoir of the first portion of her life. She recounts her childhood, her political awakening and her relationship with Esmond Romilly. I laughed, I cried, I shook my head often in disbelief.
As she admits, her childhood was unconventional. They were old-fashioned upper-class toffs, distantly related to royalty and less distantly to Winston Churchill. Jessica and her five sisters received no formal education (though their brother was sent away to school). They instead enjoyed a series of private tutors whom they teased and tortured. This meant they reached adulthood in a state that was both wordly and hugely naive and sheltered. Perhaps this explains the extreme political allegiances of at least three Mitford sisters.
Jessica acknowledges early on that readers may recognise some of the events she covers from her sister Nancy’s thinly veiled autobiographical novel The Pursuit of Love. She deals with this in what could be a humorous offhand comment, or could be a savage swipe, depending on how you read it. As someone who has indeed read The Pursuit of Love and The Mitford Girls, I did know the bare bones of Jessica’s story, but that’s no replacement for hearing it in her own words, with the details she feels to be important.
Her words are, unavoidably, those of someone born into tremendous privilege. The “jolly hockey sticks” tone oozes from the earlier pages. It is almost comedic the number of false starts that Jessica has in breaking away from her family’s right-wing politics to pursue her own left-wing ideals. Adult Jessica is certainly a socialist, and that choice cuts her off from the bulk of her family’s money, but she still has plenty of rich family and friends to visit.
Read my full review: https://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2020/05/15/invisible-boundaries-kept-me-boxed-in-from-the-real-life-of-other-people-going-on-all-around/
As she admits, her childhood was unconventional. They were old-fashioned upper-class toffs, distantly related to royalty and less distantly to Winston Churchill. Jessica and her five sisters received no formal education (though their brother was sent away to school). They instead enjoyed a series of private tutors whom they teased and tortured. This meant they reached adulthood in a state that was both wordly and hugely naive and sheltered. Perhaps this explains the extreme political allegiances of at least three Mitford sisters.
Jessica acknowledges early on that readers may recognise some of the events she covers from her sister Nancy’s thinly veiled autobiographical novel The Pursuit of Love. She deals with this in what could be a humorous offhand comment, or could be a savage swipe, depending on how you read it. As someone who has indeed read The Pursuit of Love and The Mitford Girls, I did know the bare bones of Jessica’s story, but that’s no replacement for hearing it in her own words, with the details she feels to be important.
Her words are, unavoidably, those of someone born into tremendous privilege. The “jolly hockey sticks” tone oozes from the earlier pages. It is almost comedic the number of false starts that Jessica has in breaking away from her family’s right-wing politics to pursue her own left-wing ideals. Adult Jessica is certainly a socialist, and that choice cuts her off from the bulk of her family’s money, but she still has plenty of rich family and friends to visit.
Read my full review: https://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2020/05/15/invisible-boundaries-kept-me-boxed-in-from-the-real-life-of-other-people-going-on-all-around/
nim_me's review against another edition
4.0
I know very little about the mitford sisters but since reading love in a cold climate have been keen to find out more about them.
Written by Jessica it assumes familiarity with the sisters and with the role in society and I felt occasionally that I was missing things.
It is absolutely full of scandal, although I got the feeling that the biggest scandal for Jessia was her privaledged upbringing, these are the stories told with the most outrage. Her running away to spain and eloping are told so matter of factly it is easy to forget the scandal that would have ensued at the time.
tea is ready, will continue review later.
Written by Jessica it assumes familiarity with the sisters and with the role in society and I felt occasionally that I was missing things.
It is absolutely full of scandal, although I got the feeling that the biggest scandal for Jessia was her privaledged upbringing, these are the stories told with the most outrage. Her running away to spain and eloping are told so matter of factly it is easy to forget the scandal that would have ensued at the time.
tea is ready, will continue review later.
soph_blcklck's review against another edition
funny
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide attempt, Child death, and Racism
bronwynmb's review against another edition
4.0
I read The Sisters a few years ago and have been wanting to read this ever since. The parts I loved in The Sisters were the parts I loved here, the parts I didn't care for the same. I like the early years, all the fun family stuff, hearing about the language they created and their pets. But then the pre-war stuff starts and I just don't care as much. Then towards the end it got a bit better again, when they're travelling in the US (also, the observations on America and Americans were great), but slowed down a bit again right at the end. Decca really lived an interesting life- past what's in this book too. I love reading about the Mitfords.
whats_margaret_reading's review against another edition
5.0
Jessica Mitford's sarcastic and witty tone is directed at her own family in her memoir, Hons and Rebels, of her life growing up in aristocratic English family during the 1920's and 30's. Her upbringing, education by governesses, and adventures with her large family (including some very eccentric sisters) are right out of a 19th century novel for girls, or a PBS period drama. At the same time, Jessica is growing up when her parents strongly believe in the old-fashioned perspectives of the English peerage, her sisters Unity and Diana become involved with Fascism, and Jessica's socialist leanings conflict with both. Her family goes through numerous uproars, including when Jessica's older sister Nancy starts publishing her novels including Wigs on the Green, a thinly veiled parody of the Mitford family. Jessica eventually runs away to marry her cousin, who is also the nephew of Winston Churchill, and they move to America and make their way as the war begins. The memoir ends just as World War II is beginning, leaving the reader to find out more about Jessica's postwar career as a muckraking journalist.
Mitford's lively and biting prose, as well as her (mis)adventures in her early life, paint a portrait of a society ready to change as well as a family undergoing great upheaval. Her perspective is historically interesting as well as entertaining, and Jessica Mitford is one writer I am very fortunate to have discovered by accident.
Mitford's lively and biting prose, as well as her (mis)adventures in her early life, paint a portrait of a society ready to change as well as a family undergoing great upheaval. Her perspective is historically interesting as well as entertaining, and Jessica Mitford is one writer I am very fortunate to have discovered by accident.
extemporalli's review against another edition
5.0
A wonderful memoir of the Mitford family, whom I suspect I will never tire of reading about. Jessica Mitford is wonderful, and quite aside from the more overtly wonderful character bits (the running away plan, the regret that she never pretended to be fascist so she could go to Germany, get close to Hitler and kill him) I thought one of the more complicated wonderful bits was where she thinks and writes about Unity - her sister who becomes a Nazi and shoots herself after war breaks out between Germany and England. Diana, the other sister who was a fascist, she clearly had absolutely no truck with, but Unity was more complicated and sad because they used to be so close and the communist vs. Nazi thing seemed almost like an adolescent game until it wasn't.
(There are some good Nancy bits in here too, but I almost think the best Nancy bit was in the retrospective preface Jessica wrote upon prepublication, where she writes in a cutting little PS: "Esmond was the original Teddy boy, wasn't he?" Jessica most of your life choices are great - but what Nancy says is true.)
(There are some good Nancy bits in here too, but I almost think the best Nancy bit was in the retrospective preface Jessica wrote upon prepublication, where she writes in a cutting little PS: "Esmond was the original Teddy boy, wasn't he?" Jessica most of your life choices are great - but what Nancy says is true.)