I read this earlier this year with the Literary Life Podcast and the timing was perfect because I was doing the preliminary planning for our trip to Italy. Now that trip is fully planned and booked and we're heading out in just a few weeks. Our will be quite a bit different from the ladies in The Enchanted April - a lot more walking and museums and less sitting amongst flowers and sunshine, but I'm still pretty excited about it!
This one was interesting for me. As a family, we love to travel so I really enjoyed the ideas about beauty and how its worth seeking. Some of the scenes (like them trying to get to the house that first day and all the nervousness involved - so familiar! so funny! How much do I understand those feelings of being out of my element and thinking "what have we done!"...they normally end well and I'm glad we made the leap. But sometimes you do just end up taking a wrong turn out of a church and have to quickly walk through a parking because the nice Norwegian ruffians are clearly waiting with rolled up sleeves and needles ready for the (thankfully oblivious) kids to be gone before proceeding - true story! And at least one gave me a head nod saying they were waiting. Scandinavians are so polite).
Anyway, I loved the characters at times, especially our four main ladies, and the way they interacted, especially at the beginning. And the description of Italy were delightful. But I also had a hard time connecting with it at times, especially towards the end. As the story progress, it felt more like a fairy tale (which is good otherwise I'd probably be a lot more annoyed at the husbands and the ending) but that also meant I was sorta distanced from the story. I knew it would end well and I read on because I was interested to see how the author would get us there but I wasn't really invested in any of the women or their stories anymore. So it was well written and thought provoking but I don't think I'll ever read it again.
The Enchanted April is my Classic Set in a Place I'd like to Visit in the Back to the Classics Challenge.
No comments :
Post a Comment