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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I couldn’t put this down once I’d started. Miller has produced a well-researched, informative, entertaining and touching novel inhabited by well-drawn rounded characters that the reader roots for in their struggles, challenges and triumphs. I love an Oxford based novel and this vividly conjures the locale and era with an ease in the text that draws you in. It’s s 4++ from me! Thank you to Mostly Books for sharing this proof copy.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A great debut focusing on the lives of some of the first women to be accepted into Oxford University. A great story of friendship, set in the interim war period. People are still recovering after the war, and no one is particularly accepting of the fact that women are at the university. We follow four women and how their lives intersect as they all board together at the university. We learn about their pasts, secrets, and romantic interests. You can tell this is written by someone who attended Oxford and did good research as you are thrown into the lingo and "Britishness" of the school and time period. As an American who is unfamiliar with all that, it took a little bit to get into, but otherwise was a great read!
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
adventurous
informative
inspiring
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:
No
Told from the perspective of four young women in the post WWI years who become the first women to graduate from Oxford with degrees. It took me a fair while to become fully invested in this story, but what evolved was a beautifully written story of female friendship at a time of historical importance for the feminist cause. It's not a racing drama, but instead something very subtle and wonderfully historically detailed.
emotional
informative
reflective
I found this book on a Goodreads debut list. I’m drawn to stories about female friendship and feminism, so this one stood out to me—and I ended up liking it a lot. The historical setting was a nice touch, and I appreciated how it gave a sense of what being a woman at a university back then was really like, especially with all the strict rules. The author shares her research and inspiration at the end, which added a nice layer to the story. The writing style, with its shifts between the past and present, wasn’t always my favorite, though, as it felt a bit disjointed at times. Still, I enjoyed the book overall and would recommend it to fans of historical fiction. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Eights follows, slightly confusingly, four young women who are among the first to matriculate at Oxford University. They are known as The Eights because they all room in corridor eight and they quickly become inseparable despite being very different. Over the course of the novel we see how they settle into Oxford life, cope with the aftermath of the war (this is 1920) and reveal their secrets.
So far, so predictable, and in some ways this novel doesn't do anything new, but I still found it engrossing and charming. The girls are all very likeable and I was invested in their stories. I enjoyed the way we followed first one and then another and got flashes of their backstories. I also liked learning what it was like at Oxford when the first female students arrived and what they had to put up with from the men, both fellow students and lecturers.
I read this in two days and I'd have been happy to spend longer with the girls. Overall this was fun, interesting, emotional and satisfying and I'm happy I read it. Recommended for historical fiction fans who aren't looking for anything too radical.
I'd like to thank the publishers and Netgalley for kindly providing me with an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
This was a great book about a really important and unique point in history - really showing the intersection of the impact of WWI alongside the fight for women’s equal rights in a variety of spaces. Throughout the novel, we dive deeper into the complexity of each of our main characters and learn of the multiple “battles” they are each fighting. I will admit that I found it difficult to keep them separate in the beginning of the book but I think this aligned well with “getting to know” them as the book went on, maybe even a slight reflection on society’s views of women. As an America, the often antiquated and British slang held me up a bit but I was grateful to find the glossary in the back! This was a great book and I’ll definitely continue to wonder what our Eights would have been up to after the story ended.