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bhnmt61 's review for:
The Summer Before the War
by Helen Simonson
I saw this book on a list of “unusual” love stories months ago and thought it would be a great summer vacation read, so I packed it along for our vacation last week. I was luckily right about it being a good vacation read, but curiously the love story is its weakest aspect. The slowly blooming romance between Hugh and Beatrice falls oddly flat.
But the rest of the book is terrific. Beatrice has served as her scholarly father’s assistant for years, but is left at the mercy of her tightly bound trust fund after he dies. She accepts a position as a Latin teacher in the Sussex town of Rye to escape her stifling relatives and is plunged into Rye's complex social mini-dramas, including a vocal and determined group who are scandalized by the idea of a female Latin teacher. All the while the larger drama of WWI is building and then crashes around them. I loved this book- there are a dozen lovably flawed, memorable characters: Aunt Agatha, Beatrice’s first fierce supporter; Snout, the working class boy who is Beatrice’s best student; Bettina Fothergill, the pompous, malicious mayor’s wife; Daniel, Agatha’s idealistic poet nephew. Great book, but if it’s a romance you want, look elsewhere. The relationship between Aunt Agatha and Uncle John is far more interesting than the one between Hugh and Beatrice.
But the rest of the book is terrific. Beatrice has served as her scholarly father’s assistant for years, but is left at the mercy of her tightly bound trust fund after he dies. She accepts a position as a Latin teacher in the Sussex town of Rye to escape her stifling relatives and is plunged into Rye's complex social mini-dramas, including a vocal and determined group who are scandalized by the idea of a female Latin teacher. All the while the larger drama of WWI is building and then crashes around them. I loved this book- there are a dozen lovably flawed, memorable characters: Aunt Agatha, Beatrice’s first fierce supporter; Snout, the working class boy who is Beatrice’s best student; Bettina Fothergill, the pompous, malicious mayor’s wife; Daniel, Agatha’s idealistic poet nephew. Great book, but if it’s a romance you want, look elsewhere. The relationship between Aunt Agatha and Uncle John is far more interesting than the one between Hugh and Beatrice.