A review by kellysavagebooks
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

American Isabel Archer is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt, where she finds herself awash in suitors but determined to carve an independent life for herself.

This feels like two separate books and it’s weird and I’m frustrated. The first half is interesting, if not exactly riveting, with an endearing heroine and compelling relationships. Then, halfway through the book, we get a time skip and Isabel, who previously said she may never marry, is suddenly marrying, and I never really believed any of the post factum reasoning for why that pivot happened. Then the rest of the book…sucked. Like pretty bad. And the most interesting character, with whom Isabel had the most interesting relationship, basically disappeared.

I get that the end of the book sucked because she entered a sucky marriage and it’s supposed to suck. I could have—and did for a while—get on board with that.  But then at the VERY end, everything we’ve spent the last 600 pages building is struck down. The ending is ambiguous, sure, and in the frantic googling I did after I finished (“wtf is with the end of portrait of a lady?” mostly) I found some extremely generous interpretations that would make for an acceptable ending…but, I’m sorry, I think those people were reaching and the end actually just sucks and left me feeling extremely suspicious about what the book is trying to say, especially about women. So. Yeah. Whomp whomp.