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A review by avreereads
To Marry an English Lord: Tales of Wealth and Marriage, Sex and Snobbery in the Gilded Age by Carol MCD Wallace, Gail MacColl
2.0
A FRUSTRATING READ!
(NOTE: I wanted to LOVE this book...I really did!)
The motivation to try and finish this book in 1 week kept me begrudgingly reaching for it...let me explain...
You know the saying that something "has good bones"?...well the issue with this book is...it doesn't have "bones".
Now what I mean by that is the structure, layout, readability was all wrong. There were constant paragraph and page interruptions. For example: you'll be reading a page and a sentence looks like it'll continue on the next page but instead when you flip the page you find a two page "segment" with minuscule text going off on a tangent about a seemingly unrelated topic (riddled with tiny, blurry photos) from what you're currently reading about...so you take your finger to hold a place marker to remind yourself to go back and read this two page "segment" after you follow through going to the page beyond that to meet up with where you were just left hanging. So now it's time to go back to...not just the "segment" page but to the previous page that your paragraph was connected to to now backtrack and read all the captions of all the photos and marginal notes you missed...then you read the "new segment" pages and THEN you try to resume reading the regular book content...sounds like a lot of interruptions doesn't it?! Well that is the nature of the ENTIRE book! Hence why I state it's a "frustrating read".
The other issue of note is: so many names are being thrown at you and in such tiny detail at a time and then they mention that person 20 times throughout the book and you feel responsible for trying to stitch the entire random 20 facts together but you find it so confusing that that person means absolutely nothing to you while learning about them and I just knew that wherever I left off I wasn't going to remember the previous tidbits I had read over the previous days and would fail at trying to tie them together with the new ones I was about to receive...so I felt like I was just shallowly reading the information.
I was under the impression that the book was going to devote a chapter to each of the more "famous" American Heiresses. Having all these tidbits about dozens of ladies strewn haphazardly all throughout the book left you feeling like you didn't learn anything about a one of them because you essentially get them all mixed up and can't keep the "who's who" straight.
What's irritating is this book has some good meat...though it lacks the bones...but the way it was ultimately assembled was very unfortunate.
I love history and especially non-fiction! But this was such a jumbled mess that I took down the names of the more interesting individuals mentioned and may pursue reading a book about that particular person in the future.
I also wish this book just had a picture section that made sense...not photos of various sizes collaged on a page. Some were so small I couldn't really appreciate who or what I was looking at. But I will say I did appreciate the sheer amount of pictures in this book because I love the Victorian/Edwardian eras and this was a feast for the eyes!
Also, some of the information helped me to understand the situation surrounding Downton Abbey's Cora Crawley and the Earl of Grantham much more...so that was appreciated. I also loved all the details about Edward VII all throughout the book and that was one of the more solidifying elements to the book.
Had the layout been much different and the pictures and tiny marginal notes not interrupting the readability of the book content and had there been a better arrangement for pooling all the information about a given person into one place...I think this book could have been very informative and pleasant.
I don't want to discourage anyone from reading it per se but I just wish I had been warned of the frustrating nature of the book as that may have swayed me from choosing it when I had because I wish I would have saved this book when I had more time to devote to taking it very slowly.
(NOTE: I wanted to LOVE this book...I really did!)
The motivation to try and finish this book in 1 week kept me begrudgingly reaching for it...let me explain...
You know the saying that something "has good bones"?...well the issue with this book is...it doesn't have "bones".
Now what I mean by that is the structure, layout, readability was all wrong. There were constant paragraph and page interruptions. For example: you'll be reading a page and a sentence looks like it'll continue on the next page but instead when you flip the page you find a two page "segment" with minuscule text going off on a tangent about a seemingly unrelated topic (riddled with tiny, blurry photos) from what you're currently reading about...so you take your finger to hold a place marker to remind yourself to go back and read this two page "segment" after you follow through going to the page beyond that to meet up with where you were just left hanging. So now it's time to go back to...not just the "segment" page but to the previous page that your paragraph was connected to to now backtrack and read all the captions of all the photos and marginal notes you missed...then you read the "new segment" pages and THEN you try to resume reading the regular book content...sounds like a lot of interruptions doesn't it?! Well that is the nature of the ENTIRE book! Hence why I state it's a "frustrating read".
The other issue of note is: so many names are being thrown at you and in such tiny detail at a time and then they mention that person 20 times throughout the book and you feel responsible for trying to stitch the entire random 20 facts together but you find it so confusing that that person means absolutely nothing to you while learning about them and I just knew that wherever I left off I wasn't going to remember the previous tidbits I had read over the previous days and would fail at trying to tie them together with the new ones I was about to receive...so I felt like I was just shallowly reading the information.
I was under the impression that the book was going to devote a chapter to each of the more "famous" American Heiresses. Having all these tidbits about dozens of ladies strewn haphazardly all throughout the book left you feeling like you didn't learn anything about a one of them because you essentially get them all mixed up and can't keep the "who's who" straight.
What's irritating is this book has some good meat...though it lacks the bones...but the way it was ultimately assembled was very unfortunate.
I love history and especially non-fiction! But this was such a jumbled mess that I took down the names of the more interesting individuals mentioned and may pursue reading a book about that particular person in the future.
I also wish this book just had a picture section that made sense...not photos of various sizes collaged on a page. Some were so small I couldn't really appreciate who or what I was looking at. But I will say I did appreciate the sheer amount of pictures in this book because I love the Victorian/Edwardian eras and this was a feast for the eyes!
Also, some of the information helped me to understand the situation surrounding Downton Abbey's Cora Crawley and the Earl of Grantham much more...so that was appreciated. I also loved all the details about Edward VII all throughout the book and that was one of the more solidifying elements to the book.
Had the layout been much different and the pictures and tiny marginal notes not interrupting the readability of the book content and had there been a better arrangement for pooling all the information about a given person into one place...I think this book could have been very informative and pleasant.
I don't want to discourage anyone from reading it per se but I just wish I had been warned of the frustrating nature of the book as that may have swayed me from choosing it when I had because I wish I would have saved this book when I had more time to devote to taking it very slowly.