“This is the story of a close, loving family splintered by the violent ideologies of Europe between the world wars. Jessica was a Communist; Debo became the Duchess of Devonshire; Nancy was one of the best-selling novelists of her day; beautiful Diana married the Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley; and Unity, a close friend of Hitler, shot herself in the head when England and Germany declared war.”
I went into this book, not knowing anything about the Mitford sisters. All I knew was that I had read a book about a king of France by Nancy Mitford. That is to say you can go into this book knowing little to nothing about the family, but still loving your experience reading this book. You will exit knowing all about these sisters. It really shows that what we’re going through in America right now isn’t new, that politics and ideologies have always been a source of division in families. That being said, even if you’re not an English noble woman,you can still find relatability in these pages.
I am so glad that I have read works by Ken Follett and other World War II historical fiction books because it gave me knowledge going into this one, knowing what was happening in the world at this time. But now seeing it through the eyes of women who were raised in nobility, there’s a lot of appeal to this book if you’re somebody like me who reads a lot of historical fiction or is fascinated by Britain in the 20th century or even if you are a fan of reality TV and love gossip culture there’s so much drama in this book you’ll love it.
One of the things that I loved about this book is that it’s not an opinion piece. It is simply just the facts. Sometimes fact is better than fiction. It would be so easy to write what one likes or dislikes about the women and their beliefs.This is an intriguing story and all these women could have their own book about them. I would really love to see what an author like Taylor Jenkins Reid could do with writing a book about Diana. The author makes a point in the preface that she is letting the reader make their own opinions on the views that the sisters held rather than putting her own opinions into the book. I really like that an author is letting us think for ourselves rather than being too on the nose.
I will admit at times I did get confused, especially in those years after the second world war on which sister we were following who they were having a relationship with and where we were. The writing style was my least favorite part. There were so many adjectives, adverbs, and descriptions. In my non-fiction and really my fiction too. I don’t need all of that detail. This book could’ve been 30 pages shorter. If all those words have been cut, those descriptions made me skim through the book. This is over 500 pages, but I did fly through it. I finished it about three days before I expected to.
I do want to talk about the tone. There’s such a romantic and dream like tone to the book. I think that is really fitting for the sisters. I can see a lot of them being dreamers and hopeless, romantic, and that ultimately falls on how their mother Sydney and their father David who raised them. I’m really thinking of their mother. She let them go down whatever paths they wanted to in life and of course, not all those paths were easy, but Sydney was always there to be there for them when everything fell apart, all parents should be like that.
3.75 out of 5 stars.
Izzy Reads 