09/2015 -stet

09/2012 Wendy asked me to review this from the point of view of someone without a passport, so...
I love visiting pre-WWI Europe with Betsy, much the way I love visiting pre-WWII Greece with Gerald Durrell. I think that I will never see post WWII anything save the US, and it does make me sad, though I do think I get as much out of reading as a lot of people get out of actually being there.

I love Betsy here although her dependence on men (any man! the passing man, the friendly nephew of the house, the millionaire aboard) is grating. The chapter from London makes me weep. The last few paragraphs make me stand up and shout.

Such a lovely, lovely book. I wish I could see the world that Betsy saw.


12/2009 When I was reading and re-reading this series every season as a kid, this is the book I flew through. I skimmed the tedious descriptions of pre-WWI Europe with a yawn, pined for Tacy and Tib and rolled my eyes at everything but Marco, Mrs. Main-Whittaker, and of course the glorious, perfect last chapter.

This book began to change for me when I was in my mid-twenties, and it's become one of my favorites in the series. The rich and beautiful descriptions of a Europe forever vanished make me wistful, and so grateful that Maud chose to do so little foreshadowing. I still love Marco, though he wasn't right for Betsy. I'm more fascinated with Mrs. Main-Whittaker now that I know she was modeled on Rose Wilder Lane, and I simply adore this book start to finish. Betsy's Europe is idyllic in a lot of ways, even when she's homesick and lost. It annoys me that she's constantly being bailed out by gentlemen, too- but that's true to Betsy, and I have to honor that.

But most of all... Best.Last.Chapter.Ever. Ever. No, I mean it. Ever.

So much nostalgia. My mom and I used to read this series. Betsy setting off into the great world has been an inspiration for me.

Suffers a little for me because it doesn't have any of the supporting characters from Deep Valley that are so wonderful, but recovers due to the Betsy/Joe storyline, of course.

This is definitely my least favorite of the Betsy-Tacy books. I prefer spending time with the characters we have already met and loved, but in this one we are away from them and instead with just Betsy meeting characters I never really cared about. I also thought her relationship with that Marco guy was… interesting. I wasn’t really a fan of it. I wanted more Joe!

I think this is my very favorite Betsy book out of all of them. I will also add that the authoress's descriptions of Europe are colorful and delightful, making this a good book to encourage your child to read for some history.:)

Me @ Betsy: JUST FUCKING WRITE TO JOE YOU SILLY 22 YEAR OLD

And then I cried when she did so it's fine.

I have to say that this is probably my least favorite of the series. I still love it, but there are things lacking such as all the fun surrounding the "crowd" and Betsy's beloved Deep Valley. That being said, it's still a great book and a must read. At twenty-one, Betsy is on the verge of a great adventure. She embarks on a tour of Europe - when Europe was a new horizon for a young writer to see. Betsy soon discovers that she is growing up (she is courted by a dashing Italian during her trip abroad), but she can not forget her beloved Joe.

The Betsy-Tacy books were highly autobiographical and Lovelace perfectly captures the innocence and magic of childhood. If you read this book and love it, please read the series. It will be books that you will never forget as long as you live. I also recommend the "Betsy-Tacy Companion" which is an amazing book that disects each book and compares it to it's real-life counterparts, including pictures of the "real" Betsy, Tacy, Tib and all the gang.

I had the pleasure of visiting "Deep Valley" (aka Mankato, Minnesota) for a Betsy-Tacy convention back in 1996. It was incredible to step back in time and enter Betsy's world. We toured the city and I was actually able to step foot in "Tacy's" bedroom and sit on the famous bench at the top of the big hill. It was truly a life-altering experience. I have to thank my sister, Julie for introducting these books to me and changing my life.

It's obvious how much these books mean to me. My first born child was named Tacy Kelly Maloy. Please read and enjoy. They are a treasure!

I loved this book when I read it as a young girl. I had no idea that over my lifetime I would visit some of the places Betsy sees on this adventure. That added to my enjoyment of an old friend. Anna Quinlan wrote the intro on my copy and I appreciated her views. If Isabel likes the first two, she will get these two eventually.

Still haven't been to Venice, but I re-read this while in Rome.

5-14-2009 review:
Oh how I love this book. I re-read it in preparation for my trip to (part of) the Great World. I especially love it because Betsy travels alone, something that I enjoy very much. Maud gives us everything with this one: the joys and frustrations of travel; culture & geography lessons; ROMANCE; yearnings for a bath; exciting news from a far-away friend. Not to mention the foreshadowing of the Great War and, oh, did I mention the romance?

The details of Munich and Venice are particularly rich. I haven't yet been to Venice but, when I visited Munich in 2004, I used Betsy's explorations as my itinerary. It was the perfect way to see the city.

Love-hate relationship is too strong a phrase for this book. How about love-annoyed? Then again, I seem to have had that with Betsy all along in the series. The annoyed part was related to the male aspect. Again, that seems to be a trend. Yet it was a very good growing up part for Betsy and I think these were some of the greatest lessons in that area she has gained in the series. (I suppose that is like life for us, though--we learn more in various areas as we get older and have more experiences.) It also slightly annoyed me that she had some of her vain moments, and I was relieved that many parts of her trip had her "doing without."

That aside, I loved the book. I loved being with Betsy on her adventures, and being reminded of my own venture into the Great World. I regretted and still regret that I could not spend more time in an area and actually live there to truly know the place and the people, so I envied Betsy her chances there. However, I could see even more how grateful I was to be in a tour group with so many friends and acquaintances to share my experiences, as compared to the times Betsy was alone or the effort she had to put forth to find friends in foreign lands. She probably grew more than I did in that regard, but I see that both of our Great World experiences were very eye-opening and life-altering.

I enjoyed "visiting" some of the places I knew with Betsy, and really enjoyed going to new places. It was another reminder to me of how much I loved traveling and still long to go traveling. A whole year for Europe would be ideal. Give me another for Russia and another for Asia, and I'd have only just begun!

I think what stood out to me most in this book, however, was the role of war. Considering how lightly the rest of the series had dealt with world affairs and knowing WWI was pending, I wasn't sure what would happen. But the book foreshadowed it as only a Betsy-Tacy book could. And I loved that the people, the cultures, and the places were much more real to Betsy--making the conflicts in the countries that much more prevalent and "meaningful" to her. (Especially considering 2 of 3 countries that she lived in, and the parts they would soon play in WWI.)

And the ending--I knew the Agony Column was going to play a part. But it still gave me the biggest grin as I read it. Wonderful ending (and beginning!) to a wonderful journey for Betsy.

The rating is more of a 4.25 stars.

P.S. Did I ever miss Tacy--but I SO knew what was going to happen when Betsy was in the doll shop!

P.P.S. I never was impressed by Marco. In the least. Yet I liked Mr. Brown right off! Is that the author's doing or a sense of my "taste?"

2/6/16-2/17/16 Reread! I think I enjoyed this much more this time around. Knowing how Betsy is, she didn't annoy me in the least. I actually love how honest Maud is about her own self through Betsy. Again found myself reveling in the same places Betsy and I both visited, wishing I could spend weeks at a time instead of 1-2 days, and longing to travel more. I also had refreshed myself with the history at the back of the book as to what was real and what was fiction. And since my last read, I have been a fan of Downton. So more parts stood out to me than they did before--the whole thing about upper class, maids, etc. It is sometimes uncanny to think that the times of Betsy and Meet Me in St. Louis were during the same time as Downton pre-war. Such different worlds! And to live in a country where class systems had that elements. (Though the U.S. didn't have royalty, it still had class divisions to a degree.) Anyway, my study of the Edwardian period over the last few years definitely came in to play as I re-read this book.

I can't remember the last time I cried in public. Maybe in the movie theater, maybe at summer camp. But if someone had told me at the beginning of Betsy and the Great World that two hundred some odd pages later I'd be sobbing in Barnes and Noble, I would not have believed it.

I spent a lot of the book, charming though it was, thinking that it wasn't as good as the Deep Valley books. I missed the Crowd, Mr. Ray's onion sandwiches, Tacy and Tib. It was definitely fun to read about Betsy's travels through Europe, her attraction to the purser Mr. O'Farrell, her new friends in Munich, her trip to the town with the Passion Play, the handsome Italian Marco in Venice...et cetera. But it got bogged down in the middle with historical detail, with descriptions of the new places. With Deep Valley, you just know where everything is, what it all looks like. I was also distracted by thinking about Tacy and how annoyed I was that she got married so young, and the fact that the cover still says "A Betsy-Tacy Story." The books stopped being about Tacy ages ago. I'm thinking about writing an essay about Tacy.

But then, WAR IS DECLARED and I spent the whole last two chapters crying. The scene in which Betsy and her London crew are sitting all together on her bed listening to the noise outside and waiting for the Bank Holiday to begin, and then they hear cries of "War!" was one of the most heartwrenching depictions of that event I have ever read (and I love books about this period!). The thing is, I guess I knew it was coming. Maybe that's why I didn't feel engaged in the rest of the book, because when Betsy and Tilda vowed to meet up again in Germany in 1917 (neunzehn siebzehn!), I thought to myself, "Wait, but..." And I didn't like it.

And then I started thinking, aren't all of the Deep Valley boys going to go fight in Europe? More tears. Chest heaving, with the strains of Natalie Merchant in the background, staring at a rack of Wheel of Time novels. And of course, in the last two pages, the Agony Column from Joe: Betsy. The great war is on but I hope ours is over. Please come home. Joe. Devastating. And so beautiful.

I'm looking forward to going back to Deep Valley for Betsy's Wedding, but I can't get over the punch to the gut that was the end of Betsy and the Great World.

It would be impossible for me to say what I love best about this book. I mean, maybe the beginning, which starts right in the middle of things. Time has passed--years--between Betsy and Joe and Betsy and the Great World, and she and Joe are no longer together. Taking this huge trip is such a strong move, and I love Betsy's courage.
I love that last fleeting glance of Joe (less love for the mustache), and I love even more how Betsy, almost medially, turns her mind to her trip and this amazing experience she's having.
I love the depictions of what she sees. It's sometimes uncomfortable, contextualizing a white American's experience at that time with some of the places she is, and interesting to, knowing that World War I is looming in the near, near future. Betsy never lives in a vacuum, and she hears about the assassination of the Archduke, but Betsy has so many other things to think about.
I love her discomfort in Germany, and how hard it is for her to push through it. I love the people she meets along the way.
And Marco. Oh, Marco. I mean, I my love for Joe Willard knows no bounds, but . . . I don't know. That Marco was pretty dreamy. I love how Betsy's fun in tinged with sadness, and how she realizes her feelings for Joe through her sadness about Marco.
And when she gets to England, it's just so much fun. And her letter to Joe, and her crew at the boarding house. Lovelace is such a genius as letting Betsy be Betsy in the middle of fun, and in the middle of crisis.