Read by Fiona Hardingham
15 hours, 20 minutes
Published May 2024 by Random House Publishing Group
Publisher's Summary: It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.
Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies’ motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s recalcitrant but handsome brother—a fighter pilot recently wounded in battle—who warms in Constance’s presence. But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.
My Thoughts:
Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand was one of my favorite books the year I read it. One of the things I liked about that book was the way Simonson dealt with racism and classism in England. She touches on that same topics here and I would very much have liked to see more of that. Instead, Simonson tried to work in a lot of different themes, including, of course, women's rights, domestic abuse, and the effects of war on those involved and those at home. It felt, to me, like a bit too much and sometimes felt like Simonson wasn't sure which theme she really wanted most to emphasize.
I did like a lot of the characters and the setting; but I'm still not, weeks after finishing the book, sure if I liked the ending. One thing I really didn't like was the reading (sorry, Ms. Hardingham) - some of the female voices really grated on my nerves. It's a nice time capsule of a place in time and would probably give book clubs a lot to talk about.
Read by Shiromi Arserio
8 hours, 50 minutes
Published August 2023 by Little, Brown and Company
Publisher's Summary: Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister’s five-million-word secret journal, Learned by Heart is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and Anne Lister, a brilliant, troublesome tomboy, who meet at the Manor School for young ladies in York in 1805 when they are both fourteen.
My Thoughts:
As with most (if not all?) of Donoghue's books, this one is based on real people. I first became aware of Anne Lister when I watched Gentleman Jack on HBO. Lister was dubbed the "first modern lesbian" and is well known because of the diaries she left behind, which included the story of her relationship with Eliza Raine, a young woman with a British father and Indian mother who was orphaned and sent to an English boarding school, where she met and fell in love with Lister. As tough as it is to be a gay young person in these times, imagine what it was like for young people in the early 1800's.
The book is made up of third party narratives the girls' school days together and letters from Raine to Lister as an adult. Raine is a patient at an asylum and we slowly realize, as the book goes on, that she is much more disturbed that we at first realize. Much emphasis in placed on the other girls at the school, perhaps to emphasize how quickly Lister was able to ingratiate herself with them, despite being a rebel, and how much Raine's dark skin kept her separated from the others. The book picked up for me in the end, as Raine's writing became prevalent. Interesting, but not my favorite of Donoghue's works.
No comments:
Post a Comment