A review by pussreboots
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

4.0

The 1992 film introduced me to the story of The Enchanted April and after reading the book I can say that the film is both a faithful adaptation and an improvement on the book. The pacing of the book is too slow. I think the author was trying to relate the lazy pace of the holiday in Italy through the meandering set up to the story but she takes it too far. The story could benefit from having about a third of the book edited out. There is too much time spent on having each woman waffle about her desire to take a holiday and her fears of abandoning her duties at home. A couple examples of these feelings would suffice but it seems that each woman must go through this process three or four times! By the time they had made it to the castle and had relaxed enough to invite their husbands and lovers I felt ready for a holiday myself. I was exhausted from reading their progress to the castle.