sedeara 's review for:

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

4.0

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I liked this book a lot more than I expected to. Although it takes place in New England, as a Midwesterner I related to the loneliness and hardship of a long winter. Edith Wharton captured the setting as well as the working class families who inhabited it perfectly, even though, disappointingly, she is a bit condescending to this class of people when she talks/writes of them outside her fiction. I was also impressed by the accuracy with which this book describes the yearning that accompanies a love that is not acted upon, which became all the more poignant in its subtlety. Although the ending is depressing, it took a different turn than I expected, which I appreciated. Whether the fate of the characters offers "justice" or not is up for debate, although I imagine the less compassionate reader would assert that each of the three principle characters got what was coming to them. I took out of it a message about the difference between love as an escape and love as a lifelong commitment, which keeps this particular love story from veering into melodrama.