Exceptional writing and narration!

I'm a 60 year old man but I loved this story of a 17 year old girl's first formal dance. Joanna Lumley's narration is perfect: not one nuance or character voicing would I change. I only regret that she has so few other audiobooks available. And Lehmann's writing is continuously interesting and unexpected. She has a sharp eye for both appearances and mannerisms, and we meet quite a diverse cast of characters in the course of the book. There are moments of Virginia Woolf and moments of P. G. Wodehouse, moments of Dickens and moments of Joyce. One of the most satisfying listens of the year so far.

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Monotonous narration

Not all actors are good narrators. They are two very different skills. Joanna Lumley’s voice is so monotonous I kept drifting away from the story - a book I read several times when younger & loved, so I was keen to revisit it. Sadly, I can’t recommend this one. The narration is so poor - no inflexion or interest in it; it feels as though the reading was a chore that Lumley was longing to get through, uncaring about whether her emphasis ever made sense!

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Fabulous narration, but...

Joanna Lumleys narration is fabulous (why does she not read more audiobooks?!?) So easy to listen to and well suited to the period portrayed. But I feel like i'm missing something..... This is not a fast paced book and there is not a lot of story. But I also didn't engage with any of the characters to the extent that I had no idea who some of them were! Consequently, much as I enjoyed the soothing qualities of the voice, the book itself was not very satisfying.

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Tedious, inane, classist, sexist, absolutely awful

This is one of the worst books I’ve read in recent memory. I don’t even know where to begin.

First I will warn you that this novel, especially the scenes at the waltz, consists almost entirely of tedious dialogue that does nothing to create any semblance of story—psychological or otherwise. There is no character development. It’s inane conversation after inane conversation, followed by the insecure and frankly bigoted ramblings of an idiotic 17 year old girl.

The point of view is extremely close to the 17 year old, with no narratorial distance, such that her prejudiced, classist and even sexist ideas are presented without any mediating maturity or judgement. There are numerous offensive passages throughout the book, including one where the protagonist meets a group of poor children whom she describes like dirty animals. “They weren’t like other people’s children,” she says. But that is just one example of the constant class snobbery that goes unchallenged in this novel.

The protagonist is one of the worst female characters I have ever read. She is ridiculously sympathetic to everyone. Admittedly, teenagers can be tender-hearted, but it goes well beyond that. The author seems to be saying the girl’s preposterous over abundance sympathy is somehow a strength that will blossom as the girl ages. It isn’t. I wouldn’t want my daughter looking up to a female character like this. I was infuriated by a particular scene at the waltz. An elderly man holds the teenage girl hostage, so to speak. For several dances he presses her body close to his, murmurs lines of racy Romantic poetry, and hints about sex and marriage. The girl is remarkably uncomfortable, but sympathy makes her keep dancing with him until her cousin comes and abruptly pulls her away. The worst part comes after the girl js pulled away. She looks back at the old man, FEELS SORRY FOR HIM, and wishes she could comfort him!! This entirely, alarmingly backwards. Most modern readers would agree that a perverted old man who makes a teenage girl uncomfortable by touching her too much and hinting around about sex has earned whatever humiliation he might feel. Sympathy is entirely out of place in this scene, but no one points it out. In this novel, it is charmingly “maiden-like” and feminine to be sympathetic and loving to everyone, even to the point of being trodden upon.

Some narratorial distance and perhaps an actual storyline or character growth might have helped, but instead it’s tedious conversation after tedious conversation, punctuated by prejudiced, childish ramblings that are never countered by anything more intelligent and wise. Honestly one of the worst books I have read in a long, long time.

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