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A review by kelpish
The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly
3.0
Not a bad book at all in my opinion, but it just fell a little short for me. I dislike putting too much weight in the comparison of books, but I think I would been more satisfied with The Last Garden in England if I had read it before The Women of Château Lafayette. The women of TLGIE were more well-rounded of characters than you can sometimes find in this nebulous genre of “historical fiction largely based during WWII with a cover of a woman in period clothing facing away from the reader”, but they still felt flat at times.
This may be due to me listening to it via audiobook, but I found the switching between first- and third-person narration based on character to be puzzling at best and distracting at worst. I eventually concluded that Venetia is writing in her diaries, which is why they are in first person? This is never explicitly stated via audiobook - perhaps they are differentiated in print by a difference in formatting, but there definitely seems to be something lost in listening to TLGIE. I will say that the narrators for the audiobook did an excellent job and portrayed each of the primary five women beautifully.
This may be due to me listening to it via audiobook, but I found the switching between first- and third-person narration based on character to be puzzling at best and distracting at worst. I eventually concluded that Venetia is writing in her diaries, which is why they are in first person? This is never explicitly stated via audiobook - perhaps they are differentiated in print by a difference in formatting, but there definitely seems to be something lost in listening to TLGIE. I will say that the narrators for the audiobook did an excellent job and portrayed each of the primary five women beautifully.