You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
I really loved this book because you will like all the characters even though they are all flawed. I was getting pretty tired of all the war books and the brutal violence but while this one touches upon the horrors of war, it was not graphic. Read this for book club.
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think I expected more from this book as I believe it was meant to be a hot read this year. It was written alright and provided a bit of an interesting insight as historical fiction. But overall there wasn't a story. Or one I really cared about. You can easily figure out who's going to get together in the end and other than that, which actually when it happens doesn't even take more than a page, I'm not sure the point. It touched on a few topics e.g. homosexuality and divorce in the early 20th century and how such things were scandalous and could be harmful to one's success, but didn't actually delve deep enough into them to even make one wonder why it was mentioned. Overall meh.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
I loved Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, so I was excited to read this book. I love Helen Simonson's writing. i found myself re-reading certain lines and it took me a little longer to get through the book because I wanted to savor the words a little more. It's a bit wordy in some parts, but because the writing was beautiful I didn't mind that. I will be adding this book to my permanent collection.
Sono 2 le cose che ho apprezzato di più: i dialoghi, costruiti bene, inseriti nel contesto storico, avvincenti e le protagoniste femminili non stereotipate.
Molto spesso è facile trovarsi davanti alla donna forte, fuori dagli schemi ma che travalica completamente il periodo storico, con quella sicurezza che avrebbe una donna odierna. In questo libro ci sono donne non convenzionali che soffrono la condizione femminile opprimente ma sanno perfettamente i rischi che corrono e suffragette dichiarate che alla fine si piegano alle regole della società per non venirne escluse, la loro complessità è il motore su cui gira la narrazione. Ottimo lavoro di documentazione alla base del romanzo, come viene spiegato in appendice.
Molto spesso è facile trovarsi davanti alla donna forte, fuori dagli schemi ma che travalica completamente il periodo storico, con quella sicurezza che avrebbe una donna odierna. In questo libro ci sono donne non convenzionali che soffrono la condizione femminile opprimente ma sanno perfettamente i rischi che corrono e suffragette dichiarate che alla fine si piegano alle regole della società per non venirne escluse, la loro complessità è il motore su cui gira la narrazione. Ottimo lavoro di documentazione alla base del romanzo, come viene spiegato in appendice.
J'avais adoré le premier roman d'Helen Simonson, malheureusement, celui-ci n'est pas à la hauteur de sa plume. Un gros travail d'édition manque à ce roman, notamment des coupes nécessaires dans les 300 premières pages qui sont lentes et poussive comme la langueur de l'été. Puis tout s'emballe et les ellipses font brusquement avancer l'intrigue (enfin !). Paradoxalement, on perd le point de vue de l'héroïne pour se focaliser sur d'autres personnages, ce qui est un peu déroutant. La fin semble bâclée, comme si l'écrivaine elle-même souhaitait en finir au plus vite. On sent aussi qu'elle semble regretter son choix d'héroïne pour se focaliser sur un autre personnage régulièrement au cours du roman.
Dommage, il y a des personnages hauts en couleurs qui émaillent le roman et le font respirer et vivre.
Enfin, comment faire la critique de ce livre sans passer à côté de la citation qui semble bien le résumer : "Car c'était un ouvrage dense, imprimé en petits caractères, comme si l'imprimeur avait fait tout son possible pour comprimer sa longueur indigeste dans un volume de pages à peu près maniable".
Dommage, il y a des personnages hauts en couleurs qui émaillent le roman et le font respirer et vivre.
Enfin, comment faire la critique de ce livre sans passer à côté de la citation qui semble bien le résumer : "Car c'était un ouvrage dense, imprimé en petits caractères, comme si l'imprimeur avait fait tout son possible pour comprimer sa longueur indigeste dans un volume de pages à peu près maniable".
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book took me an entire week to read even though it was an audiobook. I kept turning it off and listening to other books or reading paper books, because even though this was interesting, it moved. so. slowly. How slow is it? Here's a dramatic reenactment:
Oh look, here is our protagonist, with an interesting backstory, coming to Rye on a train. Her father has died and left her in need of employment to survive, but fortunately she's well educated and has landed a job as a Latin teacher. Can we move this along and meet other characters? No, because first we need to describe every item of clothing and minute boring detail of the train ride.
Some annoying guy pesters our protagonist on the train. He's got enough of a build up that we know we'll see him again. He's the embodiment of the annoying entitled upper class society of Rye. But he's such a caricature that I can hardly even see him as a person. Let's hear all about how he looks, and talks, and looks at other people. Good grief, we're pages and pages in by now.
Oh look, our protagonist and the annoying guy are leaving the train, and our hero arrives to give our protagonist a lift so she isn't stranded with that annoying boob. Let's hear all about how plain but nice our hero is. Oh, he's complete milquetoast. And a budding surgeon, which somehow this book makes boring despite the fact that it would normally have been a pretty brutal affair during the 1910s.
Oh, our dull protagonist has a cousin. Really?!?!? That is so shocking. Ok, it's not, as nearly everyone on the planet (except second generation one child only Chinese citizens) have at least one cousin. Hugh's cousin Daniel is younger, better looking, and not remotely interested in our protagonist. Let's talk about his clothing and his manners and his poetry. Yes please, more and more discussion about his poetry, but no actual poetry. Moment of honesty, the only thing I find more tedious than poetry is discussions about poetry. I think this lost me right here.
Ok, that was fun (for me), but on it went. There are interesting things that happen, and interesting themes discussed, but they are lost in the tedium of all of the details and infuriatingly slow pace. There is nude sunbathing! Horrible displays of sexism! Maltreatment of refugees and the poor! And then there is also a war brewing, which all of the fine and proper folks of Rye think will be a jolly good time.
I think the transition from the parlor discussions about the potential war, all of the gas-baggery and pretention, and then the stark descriptions from mostly Hugh's perspective of the actual war was very well done. The commentary about the treatment of women in many aspects was also excellent: women in academia, women as single people with no control over their own estate, women shunned and punished for being rape victims during a war, women lording their position and power over other women just because they can - and some who choose not to - it's all in there.
I am giving this a middle rating because of how well these themes are explored, but I'm not in a big hurry to give it a higher rating because it just seemed to be such a slog to get there. I think some of that was intention to highlight the different and choppy pace of the narrative after the war starts, but good grief, you almost lost me completely. I powered through because I wanted to know what was going to happen, but this could have occurred with about half the number of side characters (their were entirely too many) and about 1/10 of the flowery detailed description of every outfit everyone wore to every dang event.
Oh look, here is our protagonist, with an interesting backstory, coming to Rye on a train. Her father has died and left her in need of employment to survive, but fortunately she's well educated and has landed a job as a Latin teacher. Can we move this along and meet other characters? No, because first we need to describe every item of clothing and minute boring detail of the train ride.
Some annoying guy pesters our protagonist on the train. He's got enough of a build up that we know we'll see him again. He's the embodiment of the annoying entitled upper class society of Rye. But he's such a caricature that I can hardly even see him as a person. Let's hear all about how he looks, and talks, and looks at other people. Good grief, we're pages and pages in by now.
Oh look, our protagonist and the annoying guy are leaving the train, and our hero arrives to give our protagonist a lift so she isn't stranded with that annoying boob. Let's hear all about how plain but nice our hero is. Oh, he's complete milquetoast. And a budding surgeon, which somehow this book makes boring despite the fact that it would normally have been a pretty brutal affair during the 1910s.
Oh, our dull protagonist has a cousin. Really?!?!? That is so shocking. Ok, it's not, as nearly everyone on the planet (except second generation one child only Chinese citizens) have at least one cousin. Hugh's cousin Daniel is younger, better looking, and not remotely interested in our protagonist. Let's talk about his clothing and his manners and his poetry. Yes please, more and more discussion about his poetry, but no actual poetry. Moment of honesty, the only thing I find more tedious than poetry is discussions about poetry. I think this lost me right here.
Ok, that was fun (for me), but on it went. There are interesting things that happen, and interesting themes discussed, but they are lost in the tedium of all of the details and infuriatingly slow pace. There is nude sunbathing! Horrible displays of sexism! Maltreatment of refugees and the poor! And then there is also a war brewing, which all of the fine and proper folks of Rye think will be a jolly good time.
I think the transition from the parlor discussions about the potential war, all of the gas-baggery and pretention, and then the stark descriptions from mostly Hugh's perspective of the actual war was very well done. The commentary about the treatment of women in many aspects was also excellent: women in academia, women as single people with no control over their own estate, women shunned and punished for being rape victims during a war, women lording their position and power over other women just because they can - and some who choose not to - it's all in there.
I am giving this a middle rating because of how well these themes are explored, but I'm not in a big hurry to give it a higher rating because it just seemed to be such a slog to get there. I think some of that was intention to highlight the different and choppy pace of the narrative after the war starts, but good grief, you almost lost me completely. I powered through because I wanted to know what was going to happen, but this could have occurred with about half the number of side characters (their were entirely too many) and about 1/10 of the flowery detailed description of every outfit everyone wore to every dang event.
I would give this book 3.5 stars -- a full 4 stars for the last third of the book. The first half dragged through a lot of village life and interminable dialog that could have been thinned out by judicious editing. When the story and characters got out from under all that, I began to really enjoy the book. Hard to compare to "Major Pettigrew" since I listened to that on audio (which was a full 5 stars), but this is well worth a read.