Reviews

Olivia by Dorothy Bussy, Dorothy Strachey

Only show reviews with written explanations

lysinchapters's review

Go to review page

emotional inspiring fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

wilhelmina_reads's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Mostly a bit boring but with interesting parts scattered throughout, Olivia is a disappointment to me. The first 100 pages were a drag to get through. It picks up, certainly, but never enough to redeem the start. Maybe I just don't understand it.

bluemoony_'s review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

This book was so beautiful. I read it afternhearimg that Andre Aciman took it as and inspiration to write Call me by your name. It is beautifully written, and I felt so connected with the main character feelings, I loved it.

"El mundo cambia, lo sé. No soy indiferente a la revolución que nos ha atrapado entre sus poderosos engranajes, ni a la atrocidad del diluvio que amenaza con engullirnos. Pero ¿qué puedo hacer yo? En medio de la confusión de la tormenta que nos acecha, me he refugiado momentáneamente en esta pequeña balsa, construida con los restos de la memoria. He intentado encaminarla hacia el sosegado puerto del arte, en el que sigo creyendo"

blakehalsey's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

This book is an interesting little thing--a novella by a little known author (and her only novel at that), it is about a young student and her passionate "love" for her female teacher at a French boarding school. (I write love this way because her love for this teacher, while very real to her, has all the qualities of adolescent passion and intensity. Who knows if these feeling are really love...maybe, maybe not). While nothing explicitly sexual every happens and it actually ends in some heartbreak, it is an interesting study in that intensity that comes with our first school crushes. The fact that these feelings were between two females only made it more interesting. I've never read a book that dealt with a main character who had same-sex tendencies and I am glad that now I can say that I have. No matter your opinion on the issue, this book reveals the reality of feeling that truly does exist between two people.

snehuh's review

Go to review page

4.0

"I was innocent, with the innocence of ignorance. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I didn’t know what had happened to anybody. I was without consciousness, that is to say, more utterly absorbed than was ever possible again. For after that first time there was always part of me standing aside, comparing, analysing, objecting: “Is this real? Is this sincere?” All the world of my predecessors was there before me, taking, as it were, the bread out of my mouth. Was this stab in my heart, this rapture, really mine or had I merely read about it?"

"she had no right to treat me with such cruelty, just to spare herself the inconvenience of my tears."

"She too had been wounded perhaps by the person she loved best. And so that was what love led to. To wound and be wounded."

No wonder call me by your name (by André Aciman) was inspired from this story.