Reviews

In this story a young woman in Regency or Victorian times comes to live with her aunt (as one does when one is unmarried and the parents moved away without her) While she dreads a boring summer, She meets Frances, a wild young woman of higher birth who takes her to parties and outings and intaoduces her to friends, including a charismatic and slightly serious Gentleman.
The characters turn increasingly unlikeable throughout the story and slight niggling worry about the partying getting out of hand...
But in the end Georgiana learns valuable lessons about herself and growing up.

scbarr's review against another edition

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funny relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

noirverse's review against another edition

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2.0

This book was a mixed bag. The first half of the book was delightful and was a solid four stars, as the humor and introductions to all the relevant characters worked super well. I loved Francis and almost all the other female characters. Thomas was an endearing love interest for Georgina, and their awkward conversations in the first half of the book were endlessly entertaining. Georgina slowly descending into being a meaner person thanks to Francis' influence was fascinating. And then the second half of the book came along.

I knew just enough about the book to know that it would take a turn for the more serious, and was intrigued to find out how it would be done. Unfortunately, the heavy focus on rape and rape culture themes in the last half of the book considerably dampened my enjoyment. It's not the book's fault, to be clear, but the amount of focus on it was enough to make me wish that the book had gone in a different direction.

Another sticking point for me was Betty's character. Betty being treated awfully by Georgina multiple times and immediately forgiving her multiple times stuck out like a sore thumb, and did not feel believable. The set-up of Betty turning into Georgina's new best friend was incredibly contrived, and I felt nothing for their friendship, mainly because I never got any sort of compelling reason for why Betty would want to keep sticking around Georgina after being brought to tears by her.

The LGBT elements of this book were nice to see. However, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed when I realized that the book had no interest in letting Georgina have any romantic feelings for Francis, but that's entirely on me. Overall, I considered rating this three stars because I really did enjoy the first half of the story, but the back half is enough to make me drop a star in terms of how much I personally enjoyed it. I'm sure other people will like this one, but it sadly turned out to be not a great fit for my personal reading tastes.

meganholman0911's review against another edition

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lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Jane Austen meets Mean Girls meets Gossip Girl meets Heathers meets Bridgerton!

I love Georgiana as a main character and her development throughout the story. Her naivety at the start to becoming more experienced in life. It is a period drama with a modern feel to it which I liked.

The friendships and relationships Georgiana had and made were well developed with depth to each character with their own backgrounds. However, I just kept wanting to delve deeper and know more about everyone. There’s so many further avenues to explore it just fell a bit flat for me. Her friendships with some of the clique felt very high school. Yes there was scandal, intrigue and toxicity but something was just missing for me.

I loved Georgiana’s relationship with Thomas and how he was always by her side but felt it could have been developed further, again something was missing for me.

I think I just wanted more from this!

thebookmagpie1989's review against another edition

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funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

1.0

jenhurst's review against another edition

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2.0

This was really disappointing. Maybe teenage Jen would’ve liked this, but it didn’t work for adult Jen.

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