misshappyapples 's review for:

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt by Duchess Goldblatt

5.0

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Oh man. I loved this book. LOVED. I'd never heard of Duchess Goldblatt when my friend passed this Advanced Readers Copy to me (it's coming very soon so keep an eye out!!) and I put it on my shelf with about fifty million other books I mean to read. In normal circumstances it would have remained there for a long time. But then we all got quarantined and I remembered it. "Wasn't there some ridiculous looking memoir up there about some woman who tweets as a fictional person? That could be just what I need right now." So I pulled it down. Being rather acquainted with fictional people, not only do I have best friends that only live in books but I also have a fictional twin brother (who I've neglected lately horribly, sorry Sebastian). So Duchess Goldblatt is definitely in my wheelhouse. I wish I'd been reading her from the beginning. But this book is not all about her grace, but mostly about the woman behind her, who remains Anonymous though she shares some very deep and gutwrenching stuff. She seems convinced, for most of the book, that she could never measure up to the fictional bon vivant she's created. This is definitely untrue. As the book progressed, it was clear to me that the author and the Duchess are not the same, but they are so tangled up in each other that I believe it would be impossible to love one and not the other. Maybe Duchess is able to snap witty things faster than the author, perhaps her fictional life is more glamorous, more sensational, but the heart and care and love, which the author espouses is real, belongs to the person writing. I don't know Duchess Goldblatt like I would if I was an active Twitter participant, but the author spoke to me in ways that were so familiar, so lovely, I can't imagine I could love her grace more than I did this book.