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Review Date: 10/7/2014
The idea and presentation appealed to me, and it while it wasn't a complete let down, I found the writing to be a somewhat disappointing. In order to capture the mood of the era, a less contemporary, more sophisticated prose style would have gone a long way. As it was, the story being told in a modern voice gave it shades of a high school English project, with the unnecessary dropping of famous jazz names coming across like references to prove that yes, the writer has indeed done some research into the 20s. I was hoping for something more in the vein of "The Rules of Civility".
Review Date: 8/25/2019
How I wanted to love this book, as I've read two others by the author that did a better job of transporting me to their respective eras. The story was fine, and she does a nice job of weaving historical info into the tale, but the dialogue, vague descriptions, and overall tone did nothing to evoke the 1930s, which was disappointing. I was eager to lose myself in Hemingway's Key West, but it takes more than insertion of timely facts to accomplish that. Had the characters possessed mannerisms & speech patterns of the time, had there been some clothing details stuck in here and there, it would have been a much more satisfying read. One small thing really bugged me: Marianna is 20 (I think), so her parents would have been married at least 20 years, thus no later than 1915. At one point, Marianna looks at a photo of her newlywed parents, mother wearing a yellow flowered dress, which is still in the closet. She decides to wear this dress on a date; what woman in 1935 is going to go out in an Edwardian dress, other than to a costume party? This sort of disregard for historic details did a lot to remove me from the world of the story.
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