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svinc038's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
colty_poore's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
pllylzbth's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
mcwat's review against another edition
4.0
A beautifully written coming-of-age tale. I picked it up because I thought I might relate to Portia, but mostly because I'd heard good things about Elizabeth Bowen. As it turned out, I mostly wanted to give Portia a good shake--which is exactly what I wish I could do to my sixteen-year-old self, so my original thought was correct.
Bowen's prose was some of the most absorbing I've come across this year. Even after Portia meets and falls for Eddie (the cad!), the first section of the book tends to drag. But Bowen's beautiful setting descriptions and well-put psychological insights propelled me forward, and I'm glad they did. This is a book that builds: there are moments of high drama, but the majority of them set my eyes rolling. Bowen's strength lies in the book's quieter moments, and it's the details she leaves out that make these moments so rewarding in aggregate.
Bowen's prose was some of the most absorbing I've come across this year. Even after Portia meets and falls for Eddie (the cad!), the first section of the book tends to drag. But Bowen's beautiful setting descriptions and well-put psychological insights propelled me forward, and I'm glad they did. This is a book that builds: there are moments of high drama, but the majority of them set my eyes rolling. Bowen's strength lies in the book's quieter moments, and it's the details she leaves out that make these moments so rewarding in aggregate.
savvannahrose's review against another edition
reflective
sad
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
1.5
I was really looking forward to this book but unfortunately it fell flat. It only really gets interesting when Portia is sent to the seaside. It was beautifully written but dull in every other aspect.
bones_in_the_woods's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
adriannelucille's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
sam_bizar_wilcox's review against another edition
4.0
This novel is one that forces us to scrutinize the moments of social pause and discomfort. It is a reflection on bourgeois cruelty, on teenage girlhood, and the sanctity of one's private thoughts. By holding a magnifying glass over each of these ideas, Bowen shows just how fraught, and how fragile, our psyches - all our psyches - can be. The novel is unlike Woolf's (at times associated with Bowen, and writing just a generation before). The narration doesn't work to expose the inner truths and inner lives, but rather uses materials, dialogue, and the richness of things to give friction between the interior and exterior selves. If Woolf is transparent, Bowen is intentionally opaque. Rather than Woolf, Bowen echoes Austen, consulting the language of materialism and the comedy of manners. Yet, unlike Austen, Bowen's free indirect discourse and narrative voice is not a clearly moralizing force - we are not laughing with the speaker, admiring our heroine's strength of character and intellectual growth. We are instead pitying: before us is a tragedy so quiet as to be inscrutable from a distance, but given Bowen's keen attention we see it for what it is: the death of the heart.
My relationship with Bowen is admittedly complex. The narration itself is defensive, often inscrutable (Bowen is not interested in writing as the smart, biting critic of Austen; the difficulty of the text is why she might so often be compared to Woolf). Yet the function is remarkable. The form of the novel perfectly mirrors the subject of the text. A wall is built between the reader, just as a wall is built between the characters, just as walls crop up around them in social, economic, and physical space. The novel is a puzzle, the act of deciphering it, much like the journey embarked by the young Portia, reveals the truth: cruelty abounds - everywhere.
The mind and emotions of a teenage girl are treated with brilliant literary sophistication. Here, being a adolescent is as tragically heroic as the great classical plays. The journey to uncover knowledge is Oedipal, Bacchic, Oresteian. Remarkably, the hero here is an awkward young writer, who pours herself into her diary, and becomes the plaything of the world around her.
My relationship with Bowen is admittedly complex. The narration itself is defensive, often inscrutable (Bowen is not interested in writing as the smart, biting critic of Austen; the difficulty of the text is why she might so often be compared to Woolf). Yet the function is remarkable. The form of the novel perfectly mirrors the subject of the text. A wall is built between the reader, just as a wall is built between the characters, just as walls crop up around them in social, economic, and physical space. The novel is a puzzle, the act of deciphering it, much like the journey embarked by the young Portia, reveals the truth: cruelty abounds - everywhere.
The mind and emotions of a teenage girl are treated with brilliant literary sophistication. Here, being a adolescent is as tragically heroic as the great classical plays. The journey to uncover knowledge is Oedipal, Bacchic, Oresteian. Remarkably, the hero here is an awkward young writer, who pours herself into her diary, and becomes the plaything of the world around her.
allieoakesreads's review against another edition
3.75
Good but made me so anxious. Like it loses points just bc I was rooting for Portia and NOBODY understood her. Portia, sweetie, I know you would love Lana. She’s such a teenage girl ugh❤️