I am embarrassed to say that for some bizarre reason I had decided this would be a road trip book about 2 older ladies driving across England in a Volkswagen beetle. Okay, yes, that is a humiliating thing to even write out. Clearly, I had not looked at this book closely in ANY way. I was expecting something a bit light hearted and sweet. This was not that book.
However, this book is growing on me. The first part was slow reading. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it - but I was not drawn to it. I could read some at night and put it down. Easily. But slowly the characters grew and grew on me. I became involved in what was happening to and with them. I am now about ¾ way through the book and find I am taking every opportunity to read... I must find out what will happen.
This book does a very good job of portraying so many stereotypes (or is it just really good representation of so many types of people of this time period... that is more correct.) Not harshly portrayed, but oh so realistically I think. From the rich and stuffy wives of the diplomats, to the war-damaged man, to the ‘spinster’ teacher/entomologist, to the ‘floozy’ blonde. And beyond. They are all portrayed in their own starkness... meaning you don’t necessarily like them and yet you have empathy for (most) of them - or come to understand them in some way. Good writing to bring all these characters so richly to life.
This is NOT the book I expected at all. And it is completely different than any other book I have read. But I am now fully engaged.
Okay, just finished the book. Going to have to contemplate the ending. Know that I will be thinking about it for awhile. I did love the two characters of Margery Benson and Enid Pretty - and loved their evolutions - singularly and as friends and supporters of one another - a team.
I really loved the addendum (or whatever you might call it) at the very end of the book that talks in detail about the photo that inspired this book. Really cool. I love looking at that photo myself and reading about those two real life women and their influence on the author, Rachel Joyce.
Initially I thought I might give this a 3.5 but I raised it to a 4 because these characters have followed me around ever since... Zoom Reading Circle was more of a mixed bag - the group score was 3.6.
Quotes from the book include....
Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things. Pema Chodron
It is easier for human beings to believe the worst things said about them than the kindest.
Her frock was covered with white frills. It was like talking to a wedding cake.
Why had she left it so late in life to do the thing she’d always wanted?
You might travel to the other side of the world, but in the end it made no difference: whatever devastating unhappiness was inside you would come, too.
But war was not over just because someone signed a truce. It was inside him. And when a thing like war was inside you, it never left.
It struck her again: a life was such a short thing. All those things people carried, and struggled to carry, yet one day they would disappear, and so would the suffering inside them, and all that would be left was this. The trees, the moon, the dark.
She felt they’d already had their fair share of fear, as if bad luck was something that came in reasonable portions, when people were prepared. A bit for you, a bit for me.
Short snippet with author Rachel Joyce
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