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dylanleah304 's review for:
The Forgotten Room
by Lauren Willig, Karen White, Beatriz Williams
This is a book that I sincerely wanted to like. Like, really wanted to like. While I enjoyed the Glass Ocean, which is also written by these three authors as a tri-perspective / differing timeline book, the fact that The Forgotten Room preceeds Glass Ocean in publication is obvious.
Written in three perspectives, following three generations of women in the same family, The Forgotten Room began with an interesting premise that would examine the way families and relationships develop throughout the years. With the "forgotten room" (not exactly forgotten, per-say) in an old Gilded-Age mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan uniting each generation, three women have their own love/life stories in 1983, 1920, and 1944.
While I sincerely thought I would enjoy this book, there were far too many fall shorts that resulted in my serious skimming the last 75 pages just in hopes of finishing it and getting it overwith. I found myself frustrated with each woman's love-story arc facing familiar issues a love interest that is unattainable (due to class, relationship status, or both). Additionally, as I noted other reviewers had noticed too, the secondary female characters fell flat in being either the "ice princess" trope (the fiancé of a love interest) or a jealous trope, etc. I just wish there were more development of character there. Finally, I wish we got a bit more of a taste of what it was like to live during those periods of times, especially the parts that took place during the 1920s. There was just something about it that made it feel like I was reading a story-line that could have been dropped in many different decades and it just happened to be the 1920s, if that makes sense. That being said, I do have to commend the authors in the interesting premise and the well-done editing to make the novel not feel so disjointed for coming from three different writers.
All in all, this book was a bit of a disappointment for me. If you were intrigued by the premise of a book that is written by three authors, with three different timelines or perspectives, I sincerely encourage you to give the Glass Ocean a try!
Written in three perspectives, following three generations of women in the same family, The Forgotten Room began with an interesting premise that would examine the way families and relationships develop throughout the years. With the "forgotten room" (not exactly forgotten, per-say) in an old Gilded-Age mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan uniting each generation, three women have their own love/life stories in 1983, 1920, and 1944.
While I sincerely thought I would enjoy this book, there were far too many fall shorts that resulted in my serious skimming the last 75 pages just in hopes of finishing it and getting it overwith. I found myself frustrated with each woman's love-story arc facing familiar issues a love interest that is unattainable (due to class, relationship status, or both). Additionally, as I noted other reviewers had noticed too, the secondary female characters fell flat in being either the "ice princess" trope (the fiancé of a love interest) or a jealous trope, etc. I just wish there were more development of character there. Finally, I wish we got a bit more of a taste of what it was like to live during those periods of times, especially the parts that took place during the 1920s. There was just something about it that made it feel like I was reading a story-line that could have been dropped in many different decades and it just happened to be the 1920s, if that makes sense. That being said, I do have to commend the authors in the interesting premise and the well-done editing to make the novel not feel so disjointed for coming from three different writers.
All in all, this book was a bit of a disappointment for me. If you were intrigued by the premise of a book that is written by three authors, with three different timelines or perspectives, I sincerely encourage you to give the Glass Ocean a try!