Elspeth Marr

I gave this one up shortly into it. For one thing, the anecdotes in it really aren't that funny. The nephew says in his forward that not all the stories are even hers. The hyped up description is misleading. Methinks letters "adapted from sources" equals an editor who made stuff up.

Secondly the format is very dictionary and impersonal. I would have so much rather read these bit of her letters in the context of a whole letter. I can imagine it would have opened her up as a character and would have made her quirkinesses much funnier.… (más)

I'm deeply skeptical about this, and I can't articulate precisely why. Not because I disbelieve that a Victorian could hold these opinions, certainly not. But there's something... I don't know, precious, something that smacks of patting old ladies on the head here. "Look how cute my old auntie was, so modern talking about sex and wine!" Meh.

The whole book made me roll my eyes. I want more back story, more information about Elspeth, more context. More than darling little opinions on how shoving a hot leek up someone's butt works as a last-ditch cure for hemorrhoids.

Again, I have no idea why this book excited my inner cynic, but it surely did. It may well be every bit as charming as the rest of the Goodreads community found it, and the fault mine.… (más)