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unabridgedchick's review
5.0
This delicious little book is the collected wisdom of a Mrs Elspeth Marr, a Victorian wife writing for an unknown female. The advice is shockingly modern, wickedly funny, and very practical. I mean, the woman suggests sex as a cure for insomnia! (Unless one is unmarried. Then she suggests onions.)
Books like this are a lovely reminder that free thinkers have always been around, that women -- regardless of era -- possess great wisdom, and humans always suffer sleepless nights!
Books like this are a lovely reminder that free thinkers have always been around, that women -- regardless of era -- possess great wisdom, and humans always suffer sleepless nights!
satyridae's review
1.0
I'm deeply skeptical about this, and I can't articulate precisely why. Not because I disbelieve that a Victorian could hold these opinions, certainly not. But there's something... I don't know, precious, something that smacks of patting old ladies on the head here. "Look how cute my old auntie was, so modern talking about sex and wine!" Meh.
The whole book made me roll my eyes. I want more back story, more information about Elspeth, more context. More than darling little opinions on how shoving a hot leek up someone's butt works as a last-ditch cure for hemorrhoids.
Again, I have no idea why this book excited my inner cynic, but it surely did. It may well be every bit as charming as the rest of the Goodreads community found it, and the fault mine.
The whole book made me roll my eyes. I want more back story, more information about Elspeth, more context. More than darling little opinions on how shoving a hot leek up someone's butt works as a last-ditch cure for hemorrhoids.
Again, I have no idea why this book excited my inner cynic, but it surely did. It may well be every bit as charming as the rest of the Goodreads community found it, and the fault mine.
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