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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
Awful. I didn’t want to finish it. I did and it was a waste of time.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
After reading this book, I realized, that as a self-termed avid reader, I have never read any Hemingway! [b:The Paris Wife|8683812|The Paris Wife|Paula McLain|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320545874s/8683812.jpg|13556031] brought great interest to me to find out what I could about Ernest Hemingway, what he wrote & helped take me back to the 1920's to 'meet' him as a struggling/starving artist. The Hadley Hemingway Ms. McLain created was stunning, smart, sensitive, and lost. Lost in the big bustling world of international travel and lost in love when others mixed lust with it. She gave her characters life; even little "Bumby" who I would take right home with me in an instant! I had a hard time in the middle of the book when Hadley knew that her marriage was not as pure as the driven snow any longer. As narrator, she threw some curve balls telling the reader that the things to come would not be sweet or sunshine & it put a damper on the next several chapters until the book evened out again & I was able to just read vs waiting for the bottom to drop out of Hadley's marriage. I really liked the book. A solid 4 stars.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was intrigued with Hemingway after visiting his home in Cuba and then reading a recent biography. But I was disappointed, partly because I think I knew too much of what was going to happen, but also because of the writing of the author. The characters, their lifestyle, and their love story never came alive for me. It often felt like a flat slog.
This book reads incredibly fast - the author uses (annoying) hooks at the end of every chapter so that you just have to turn the page. I enjoyed Paris in the 1920s, and all the traveling that Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley, did around Europe, but the narrator/main character Hadley grew to be almost annoying and it was hard to feel sympathy for her. At one point I wanted to slap her for being so weak as to allow what was going on around her. Fun read for the beach and a quick one at that.
The Paris Wife is a fictionalized, but highly truthful telling of Hadley Richardson and Ernest Hemingway’s marriage — Ernest’s first of four — in the jazz age among the literati in Paris. It is beautifully told, bringing us along the emotional ride of Ernest’s striving years, to the inspiration of The Sun Also Rises, to his critical and commercial success. You get to know Ernest through the eyes of a beloved wife who adores him but recognizes she is second to his work. Until, of course, she isn’t. We watch in horror and feel the bone-deep sadness as their marriage falls apart; as poor Hadley is betrayed not just by her husband but by her friend — maybe even her entire friend group. Even knowing how things turn out for her (I fell down several Wikipedia rabbit holes), I ached for her pain, felt it as if it were my own, and wanted to scream to the heavens in anger at a long-dead couple. So, yes, this is a great book. As a bonus, I am inspired by what I’ve read to read other books: Hemingway’s last book, “A Moveable Feast,” a memoir of his time with Hadley, who he very deeply loved in his own flawed way; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book “Tender is the Night,” ripped as it was from his bi-polar wife Zelda “The first American flapper” (and inspiration for Gatsby’s Daisy Buchanan) Fitzgerald’s journal; and Zelda’s own novel of her journal “Save Me the Waltz,” which she wrote during a stay in a sanitarium (and for which her husband forbade her from publishing but she did anyway.)
Note: I listened to this on audio
I found this really boring and tedious. Maybe I would have liked it better if I'd read it instead of listened to it. I love Paris, the 20's, straightforward and realistic stories, but this just did nothing for me.
I found this really boring and tedious. Maybe I would have liked it better if I'd read it instead of listened to it. I love Paris, the 20's, straightforward and realistic stories, but this just did nothing for me.
I enjoyed reading about Ernest Hemingway, but this book seemed to go on and on and on.