Reviews

The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough

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hipstamom's review

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emotional lighthearted fast-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? Yes

4.0

lillimariexo's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.25

A sweet short book that took me a while to get into. The main characters are quite dry and dull, mirroring the life they live as ‘not quite good enough’ Hurlingford women. They live in poverty, too proud and well mannered to ask for help, they instead put themselves upon their richer relatives and ‘eat all their cake once a week’ instead. The three main women are actually quite sweet really, they just have been served a bad lot, and their daily routine is a constant. Poor Missy never blooms into the fair haired and willowy nature of all her cousins, instead being resolutely dark haired and darker tempered, she seeks solace in the forbidden battered romance novels her friend at the library saves for her, and that she reads secretly, under her covers, dreaming of being swept away by a handsome stranger. And when that stranger appears in town it will change the lives of all the browbeaten Hurlingford women, mothers, sisters, cousins , forever. Enjoyable enough, if a little frustrating at times. I’ve since discovered people feel it plagiarised a book called the blue castle, I will have to find out!

sofialibrary_sofia's review against another edition

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4.0

Missy vive com a mãe e com a tia numa pequena cidade na Austrália onde só vivem praticamente familiares. Pertencem a uma família importante e rica mas que ao longo das gerações foi privilegiando apenas os filhos homens e não as mulheres. Apesar de pobres e com uma vida simples são as 3 bastante felizes.

A Missy é solteira e tem 30 anos e na sequência de alguns acontecimentos, sofre uma transformação na história e de discreta e resignada, revela-se rebelde, desafiadora, impetuosa, apaixonada, astuta e inteligente.

O livro tem menos de 200 páginas e tenho muita pena que as personagens não tenham sido muito mais desenvolvidas, acho que o livro tinha muito mais para dar e assim foi apenas uma rápida lição a uma família machista, poderosa e influente. O final, apesar de tudo, conseguiu ser surpreendente.