Read through chapter 29 which is the end of the original material by Edith Wharton.

Well well! This book was uneven - it starts off with incredible momentum, I was mesmerized! - but after the time skip, when book 3 begins, events and characterizations become sketchy and lose momentum drastically. It's a bit disappointing.

But even so, as I read on, there are excellent parts: the examinations of (courtly) married life and gender roles, cultural and class differences, and the perspectives of the older upper crust women which I joked about but which comprise an important, textured, and meaningful heart of the book. Oddly, it's through those upper crust ladies that the story is really *seen*, emotionally, and I'm not clever enough to say if that's some sort of commentary (I suppose it is), but the effect is cool. The whole book feels as if it's riding on a kind of wild gossip-energy, the girls like sprites, the men hardly there, and time flying by in conversation, dinner parties, and dances.

It's good stuff. Judging by the quality of the first half, if Edith had finished the content and revised the jank of the time skip, this likely would've been amazing. As it is, the first half was a real joy and the second half is a framework with glimpses of promise. And that's enough for me to say that this was worth it. Edith, I'll be returning to you in the future!

2.5

Read because of the show and Kristine Froseth’s mention of the marriage between her character and the duke being dark in the book. Went on a rabbit hole from there and found out, while not physically abusive in the book and actually being so in the movie, was still extremely toxic. However, I didn’t rly like the book all that much. Loved it at the start, which I’m gonna assume is up until the part Edith Wharton’s parts ended, but it got tedious and kind of hard to read more than half way through. Also, I love the direction they took with Mable’s character in the show wayyyyy more than in the book.

I decided to read this after watching (and becoming obsessed with) the series adaptation on AppleTV. While a lot of the plot is different, the spirit of the main characters is not. It was a slower read than I'm used to, but still really enjoyable.

Recommend to fans of regency romance, or TV shows like The Gilded Age and Bridgerton.

Nan is everything I want to be: a romantic, honest, adventurous, and humble. How brave of her in this book, and how idyllic to lead with love instead of status. I loved the acknowledgment of the “beyond” as a means of the separation of deeper spirits from those on the surface level.

It’s so Wharton-esque to condemn societal expectations if they result in feelings of disdain, jealousy, unhappiness, and artifice. She writes wonderfully, but I would have liked this one to be a short story instead. It was predictable, and it was taking too long to get to where we knew it would end.

I can’t wait to watch the show!

Edit: the show was VASTLY different from the book, but I honestly loved it so much. I usually hate when things stray from the text, but it was SO GOOD!

Non avevo alte aspettative per questo libro, che infatti non mi ha conquistata più di tanto. L'ho trovato noioso, con uno stile molto descrittivo e poetico che dice poco sui personaggi e sulla storia.
▪️ La cosa che mi ha dato più fastidio è stato un salto temporale in particolare (ci sono alcuni salti di tempo tra le varie parti), che ha reso troppo sbrigativa la storia di Nan. Non so se l'autrice avesse intenzione di aggiungere la parte mancante, ma avrei davvero voluto sapere di più su Nan e il duca e sul loro matrimonio. Avrei anche voluto avere qualche scena in più tra Nan e Guy, perché una conversazione non è proprio il massimo come base del loro grande amore

Very tedious reading for me, unlike other stories by this author.

This show is great. This book is not

First, the Romans had come. Then the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. Then the Danes terrorized England for three centuries. Norman pirates took the country over in 1066. Five centuries later Turks raided the Thames and took prisoners to sell in the Libyan slave-market.... But never had there been any phenomenon to match this, this— he recalled an article this "invasion of England by American women and their chiefs of commissariat, the silent American men...* "What a gang of buccaneers you are!"

oh my gooooood i love it i love it i love it so much i actually want to bite a huge chunk of my physical copy with how much i want to consume this book until i can never be parted from it what the HELL

Odd to have such a tidy happy ending in a Wharton book, but I suspect that is the work if the author who finished The Buccaneers after Wharton’s death. Surprisingly progressive for the period in which it was written. Not House of Mirth or Age of Innocence but a good story of friendship and the transition from girlhood to womanhood.

I read this many years ago before my daughter married an Englisman.

I couldn't put this down last night; review to come.