I read SECRETS OF A CHARMED LIFE for a TBR buddy activity in my online book club, The Reading Cove.
Though unevenly paced, I enjoyed the first two-thirds of this story the most. The last third turns into an epistolary, where over 60 pages of the closing dual-narrative come through letters one character wrote to another. It became pretty laborious reading after a while and I felt a bit cheated out of actually being able to "see" some of what had happened rather than simply being told about it after the fact.
The main character Emmy Downtree was also not particularly sympathetic for me, yet the story is all about her and most thoroughly from her perspective. While she makes a HUGE mistake as a naive 15-year-old girl, I hold the adults who made it possible equally responsible, maybe even more so! They should have known better given what was going on.
The author did show great promise in the complexity of Emmy's relationship with her mother, and I would've loved if that could've been explored further to make Emmy more likable overall. As it was though, her narrow-minded and dogged ambition while London was being bombed out of its mind was really annoying--and even pushed the boundaries of plausibility!
So all in all, although I really wanted to love this book and did enjoy some of the writing, I was disappointed in the end. However, if you enjoy stories set during WW2, this is a good read. There were a couple of touching moments when I even teared up a bit. I give it 3.75 stars, B-.
Though unevenly paced, I enjoyed the first two-thirds of this story the most. The last third turns into an epistolary, where over 60 pages of the closing dual-narrative come through letters one character wrote to another. It became pretty laborious reading after a while and I felt a bit cheated out of actually being able to "see" some of what had happened rather than simply being told about it after the fact.
The main character Emmy Downtree was also not particularly sympathetic for me, yet the story is all about her and most thoroughly from her perspective. While she makes a HUGE mistake as a naive 15-year-old girl, I hold the adults who made it possible equally responsible, maybe even more so! They should have known better given what was going on.
The author did show great promise in the complexity of Emmy's relationship with her mother, and I would've loved if that could've been explored further to make Emmy more likable overall. As it was though, her narrow-minded and dogged ambition while London was being bombed out of its mind was really annoying--and even pushed the boundaries of plausibility!
So all in all, although I really wanted to love this book and did enjoy some of the writing, I was disappointed in the end. However, if you enjoy stories set during WW2, this is a good read. There were a couple of touching moments when I even teared up a bit. I give it 3.75 stars, B-.
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