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melissakuzma's review against another edition
3.0
This is a great story, but I only gave it three stars because it was too much history for me. I really just wanted to know more about Georgiana's fascinating personal life. You get one paragraph on her illegitimate daughter with the love of her life and then 10 pages on the Whig party. I can't believe I'm saying this but I liked the movie better.
anniew415's review against another edition
3.0
I'm conflicted... I have had this on my "to read" list for years, and now that I've read it I am not sure it was worth it. I liked Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire as a character, and I appreciate her intelligence, strategic insight, grace, and wit in an age when women were not known for all these talents (more like one or the other,)...
HOWEVER, the author also made her seem like a bumbling mess of a woman who would have been in debtor's prison 100 times over if it weren't for her title. The constant issue of money matters and Georgiana's conniving and lies, while making me appreciate the complexity of her character, made her seem no better than a sorority girl playing with Daddy's money. I just kept wishing she'd grow up and get with it. She did in some respects, but not in this one...
The author tied up the ends in the epilogue talking about feminist theory and how to fit the Duchess into the discussion, and frankly I wish she had taken the trouble to mention this in the narrative before somehow.
Overall somewhat interesting read. I wish the political aspects were more interesting to me personally, but apart from Whig & Tory and who was which, I had no understanding from the text of which party stood for what. I did enjoy the scandals & romances & affairs, only because they are in such sharp contrast to the popular Victorian era which came 50 years later. It makes you wonder how Queen Victoria made all of that virtue happen so quickly when the vice was so thick and inbred...
I don't know, give it a try...
HOWEVER, the author also made her seem like a bumbling mess of a woman who would have been in debtor's prison 100 times over if it weren't for her title. The constant issue of money matters and Georgiana's conniving and lies, while making me appreciate the complexity of her character, made her seem no better than a sorority girl playing with Daddy's money. I just kept wishing she'd grow up and get with it. She did in some respects, but not in this one...
The author tied up the ends in the epilogue talking about feminist theory and how to fit the Duchess into the discussion, and frankly I wish she had taken the trouble to mention this in the narrative before somehow.
Overall somewhat interesting read. I wish the political aspects were more interesting to me personally, but apart from Whig & Tory and who was which, I had no understanding from the text of which party stood for what. I did enjoy the scandals & romances & affairs, only because they are in such sharp contrast to the popular Victorian era which came 50 years later. It makes you wonder how Queen Victoria made all of that virtue happen so quickly when the vice was so thick and inbred...
I don't know, give it a try...
anhedonia_n_anomie's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Emotional abuse and Toxic friendship