A review by majasmine02
The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Woah. I’m finding it really hard to review this book because there is just so much in it. It is a perfectly crafted complex narrative with so many cogs turning that come together at exactly the right moment to create parallel moments of joy, terror and tension. Our many ladies each had their own individual voices and were the driving force behind each of their narratives but were clearly linked together by something bigger. This ‘something’ created a beautifully punchy ending that was incredibly emotive and had made some truly emotional moments throughout the plot. The way disability in the aftermath of war was handled was done brilliantly. Additionally, there were nuanced discussions of other identity markers like race, gender and religion within each time period which I found was done excellently when so many historical fiction books like to shy away from these things or give a simple right off to them. I know that while reading this book I did find faults but for the life of me now, I can not remember what they were. This illustrates to me that they were small hiccups that did not crop up repeatedly and that were buried under this wonderful narrative. The book itself is an epic that can seem more than a little daunting with so much going on but I was constantly engaged and felt that I slipped right into the narrative. It was also incredibly well researched and I have come out the other end feeling like I’ve learnt a lot. Overall, just amazing.