A review by melissad75
Lucy by Ellen Feldman

1.0

Really not good. There is a sad lack of depth to any of these characters, and the story skims along on the surface of everything. It's a shame, too, because if any two people are larger than life and yet still ciphers in many ways, it's Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And Lucy Mercer is enough of a mystery, having been extremely discreet about everything to do with her relationship with Roosevelt, that there's room for a writer to really expand on her character and make her worthy of this great man's lifelong love. It's like Feldman is so tied to the dates and places and names she does know from the historical record that that's all she feels comfortable writing about. It makes for a pretty thin story.

One someone with no previous knowledge of the Roosevelts' lives might find confusing, as well. Having just finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time, I was familiar with the people and incidents Feldman refers to, but otherwise I probably would've been pretty puzzled. A real disappointment.