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A review by thesummer
Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
4.0
Loved this! Trollope is truly a class of his own. I thought it being a "political" novel would mean it'd be boring and not character-focused, but it's not about the nitty gritty of politics so much as it is the navigating of the system of becoming and being an MP, which is quite dramatic, ridiculous, and provides lots of opportunity for character development and growth. (Fine, some of it is a little boring, but it's very skimmable--just skip to the fun stuff with relationships and characters.) I loved Can You Forgive Her and was loathe to switch to a male main character for this one, but there are lots of women in this book too, and they all had interesting characters, dilemmas, and perspectives and get a decent amount of screen time. Trollope has the rare talent at creating situations where characters make decisions that you later realize were mistakes, but where at the time, you thought they were understandable and justified decisions; you weren't banging your head against the wall.
I thought this would be more of a sequel to Can You Forgive Her?, but it's actually just set in the same universe--we get glimpses of Lady Glencora and Mrs. Grey, but they're true cameos rather than the thing romance authors do when they write another novel about the character's brother and we see the people from the first novel being nauseatingly happy. I would have liked some more fluff about them tbh, but it was nice that there was at least a throwaway line about them still being very good friends.
Phineas reminded me a bit of George from the last book--I hate it, but this phenomenon of meh men getting a lot of love, faith, and accolades from smart women is definitely a thing that happens in life. Phineas was a total Hufflepuff, but like not even one who works hard? Just coasts through life on his good looks and pleasant personality. Trollope nailed his character down so well, but also made him just sympathetic enough that you're invested in his life. Such a master of combining cynicism with faith and capacity for growth when it comes to humans. Anyways, I'm really excited about the next book, where the main character is apparently a Slytherin gal; those are my absolute favourites.
I thought this would be more of a sequel to Can You Forgive Her?, but it's actually just set in the same universe--we get glimpses of Lady Glencora and Mrs. Grey, but they're true cameos rather than the thing romance authors do when they write another novel about the character's brother and we see the people from the first novel being nauseatingly happy. I would have liked some more fluff about them tbh, but it was nice that there was at least a throwaway line about them still being very good friends.
Phineas reminded me a bit of George from the last book--I hate it, but this phenomenon of meh men getting a lot of love, faith, and accolades from smart women is definitely a thing that happens in life. Phineas was a total Hufflepuff, but like not even one who works hard? Just coasts through life on his good looks and pleasant personality. Trollope nailed his character down so well, but also made him just sympathetic enough that you're invested in his life. Such a master of combining cynicism with faith and capacity for growth when it comes to humans. Anyways, I'm really excited about the next book, where the main character is apparently a Slytherin gal; those are my absolute favourites.