Wideacre : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Not for the Novice Reader
Review: This piece is not for the novice reader, but if you yearn for literary analysis on innumerable levels from Feminist to Freudian, you have found it here. However, if you want only a pleasant, obvious historical romance, keep on looking. There are themes here that are congruent from Medea to Weathuring Heights. It embraces literary themes from Greek tragedies to Shakespeare. The levels of analysis here are endless. One could read it hundreds of times, and close the book with different impressions each time.

Rating:
Summary: Oh Please Beatrice!
Review: THis is a good novel...if you like loads of detail and an over dramatic heroine. As soon as Ralph left the story really lost a lot of it's center and things definitely spin out of control. Beatrice is an unbelievable waste, and it's hard to belive that anyone can catch that much detail in first person point of view. But For some reason I continued to read and finished some what satisfied because towards the end Beatrice was right Her Ralph Belong together and if anything they made the story worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Like a car wreck....
Review: you don't want to watch, but you can't help yourself.

A few times I was tempted to put the book down, as it was quite disturbing. In the end, I stuck with it. I did have the urge to find out what happened to Beatrice in the end, but I found myself rooting against her with a vengeance.

Like many others, I agree that "The Queen's Fool" & "The Other Bolyen Girl" were better.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent writing fails to motivate reader to finish book
Review: I rated this book four stars only because the writing is so excellent. I could not finsh this book however, merely because I was so sick of how vain this Beatrice was. You can only stand to read "I was so lovely" or "I was as lovely as a sleek pampered cat" so many times before I wanted to throw the book down in disgust.
Also, if there would have been any way of sympathizing with the character, I would have finished, but I read about 300 pages and couldn't take it anymore. Not only endlessly vain but totally psycotic! Read The Queens Fool instead.

Rating:
Summary: Incestual Yet Fascinating
Review: I love Gregory's books, however the "Wideacre" series is slightly odd. I might be biased in my opinion because I adore Gregory's other books "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "The Queen's Fool" and had I read "Wideacre" before falling in love with those other novels, I think my opinion would be quite different. "Wideacre" is wonderfully written with an easy reading flow and an addictive story, yet some aspects might be rather condradictive to most morals and values. I find the idea of a character that seduces her brother into having 2 children with her (which strangely enough seem to surpass all rules of incest and are born without birth defects) quite disturbing. I think it is a wonderful story about a woman's struggle in 18th century England to claim land and titles through her own cunning. It is pleasantly wicked yet disturbing. Beatrice is truley unlike any character you will ever run across.