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megstro 's review for:
The Summer Before the War
by Helen Simonson
I received a free ARC of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks, Netgalley!
I hope the author doesn't get tired of comparisons of this book to either Jane Austen or Downton Abbey, because I'm afraid I'm going to make both of them. This is a delightful and deft comedy of manners. Most of the cast of characters strike me as entirely ridiculous in their ceremony, but I think Simonson does a wonderful job of blending the realities of such a time that really did stand on that ceremony with a caricature of how such things could manifest in the extreme. The sharp wit of the characters made me smile, and I found myself spoiling for a fight between several of them. The fierce independence and fortitude of Beatrice and Agatha is refreshing, and the struggles they face, particularly Beatrice, are sharply felt and ire-inducing in this modern time where it's unfathomable that a woman might not command her own affairs. In this way it's a slightly modernized Austenesque comedy set against the backdrop of my personal favorite of historical conflicts.
(Okay, on further reflection, the only way in which it reminds me of Downton Abbey (other than I listened to the soundtrack a lot while reading it) is in the pageantry and ceremony of characters big and small. This is something that's always fascinated me because it is so foreign--being American I have no history of landed gentry or nobles or whatever-you-call-them, so I watch things like Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey with rapt attention. )
I hope the author doesn't get tired of comparisons of this book to either Jane Austen or Downton Abbey, because I'm afraid I'm going to make both of them. This is a delightful and deft comedy of manners. Most of the cast of characters strike me as entirely ridiculous in their ceremony, but I think Simonson does a wonderful job of blending the realities of such a time that really did stand on that ceremony with a caricature of how such things could manifest in the extreme. The sharp wit of the characters made me smile, and I found myself spoiling for a fight between several of them. The fierce independence and fortitude of Beatrice and Agatha is refreshing, and the struggles they face, particularly Beatrice, are sharply felt and ire-inducing in this modern time where it's unfathomable that a woman might not command her own affairs. In this way it's a slightly modernized Austenesque comedy set against the backdrop of my personal favorite of historical conflicts.
(Okay, on further reflection, the only way in which it reminds me of Downton Abbey (other than I listened to the soundtrack a lot while reading it) is in the pageantry and ceremony of characters big and small. This is something that's always fascinated me because it is so foreign--being American I have no history of landed gentry or nobles or whatever-you-call-them, so I watch things like Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey with rapt attention. )