[VVT]⇒ Download Falling Angels A Novel Tracy Chevalier 9780525945819 Books

Falling Angels A Novel Tracy Chevalier 9780525945819 Books

Download As PDF : Falling Angels A Novel Tracy Chevalier 9780525945819 Books

Falling Angels A Novel Tracy Chevalier 9780525945819 Books

I have actually been to this coastline in the United Kingdom and have watched various shows about Mary. It was fantastic to get the feel for the difference in class and how it affected the future of the women in the book. It strikes me that we are told the women were over protected/controlled by the men yet they seemed to do pretty well in the end. I do not see so much different from todays women who struggle to juggle work and their family/home. It is great to have so much detail in a book that you feel like you are really there. Loved previous books by Tracy Chevalier - The Lady & the Unicorn, Remarkable Creatures and The Virgin Blue just to name a few - they have all been really good reads.


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Falling Angels A Novel Tracy Chevalier 9780525945819 Books Reviews

"Falling Angels" is not nearly as good as "Girl with a Pearl Earring," but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I have read Barbara Kingsolver's "Poisonwood Bible" and I liked the way the chapters were written from the points of view of different characters, and I think Chevalier did a fine job going back and forth between perspectives. This is not my favorite writing style, but it's nice to read something different every now and then. I tend to get attached to characters, and I found myself hoping for a bit more character development. One of the reviewers made the comment that Maude and Livy would never be friends. I don't know if that's true, but it did seem to me that maybe the author went to great lengths to make them complete opposites, which came off as forced. If you enjoy historical fiction (I would read a novel set in the 19th century over one set in the 21st any day), then I think you'll like this. It's entertaining.
The dialogue in this novel was so artificial and trite that I stopped reading the book after a chapter or so. I was particularly bothered by the language of the children in this book, which did not ring true.
Interesting characters set in an interesting time in history, and the writing is very good. It tipped toward some familiar judgments on female characters, though, and for that reason, I didn't give it a 5.
I think you will like this if you read 1 or 2 of the authors other books but if you have read more than that, you will likely be thinking "Ugh... this, again??" Just like a comedian is cool at first but you get bored of hearing them re-tell the same old jokes, this author sticks to repeating the things you first adored in her writing. While I appreciate that each author has their own style, it might be nice for Chevalier to take longer on her next works to try to develop a more unique flavor for each book.
This book covers the period in the lives of two families that stretches from January 1901, the end of the Victorian era, to May 1910, the end of the Edwardian one. The lives of these two families, the Colemans and the Waterhouses, converge and become inextricably woven together when they inadvertently meet at a cemetery while paying their respects to deceased loved ones. Unbeknownst to them, their lives are moving inexorably towards a tragic denouement, one that is to have ramifications for both families.

Two of the daughters of these respective families, Lavinia Waterhouse and Maude Coleman, find that they have formed the beginning of a friendship during the brief interlude at the cemetery. The two girls also befriend Simon Field, the son of one of the gravediggers at the cemetery. The friendship of the two girls is cemented when they later discover that they are to be neighbors, as through happenstance the Waterhouse family moves onto a property adjacent to that of the Colemans. Despite differences in social class and personal taste, as the Waterhouses are definitely sentimentally bourgeois and the Colemans have pretensions to more refinement, the families are brought together, however unwillingly, through the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

The mothers of these two girls are unable to form a true friendship, as stolid Gertrude Waterhouse and pretty Kitty Coleman are unable to find much common ground. Gertrude is bound in tradition, while Kitty, dissatisfied with her marriage and her life, is looking to escape tradition and expand the role allotted in society to women. Never the twain shall meet, as these women will never see eye-to-eye, despite the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

This is a well-plotted novel with each character adding his or her perspective to the events that unfold, many of which are of a secretive nature. Even the husbands, Albert Waterhouse and Richard Coleman, have something to say that contributes to the development of the story, as does Richard Coleman's mother, Edith, as do the Coleman's maid, Jenny Whitby, and their cook, Dorothy Baker. Lavinia's younger sister, Ivy May, who plays a small but pivotal role, also has her say, as does Kitty's admirer, John Jackson. There are also a number of twists and turns in the tale.

The story is told in the clean, spare prose that fans of the author have come to expect. It is told through first person narratives, and it is almost as if the narratives were taken from the personal diary or journal of each character. Therein lies the rub, as the author is unable to make the voice of each character truly distinguishable from that of the others. The book suffers somewhat from the failure of the author to develop a truly unique voice for each one. This is, however, the only failing of this otherwise absorbing and intriguing story that is suffused with period detail. This is an otherwise excellent book that fans of the author will enjoy, as will those who love historical fiction.
I enjoyed this book by Chevalier, but not as much as Girl with the pearl earing or Remarkable Creatures. I would have liked it to include more on the suffragette mouvement. I got attached to the characters, many of which are children. It is an original book that reads well. I was surprised when it ended (perhaps because I am still getting used to reading novels on a !).
This novel is narrated by each of the characters in the first person. This is difficult but generally successful here; the only false notes to me were the early sections of Maude's and Livinia's narrations. Even allowing for the differences between Victorian and modern child-rearing they simply sound too precocious to be completely credible. Otherwise this is a beautifully done picture of thoughts both said and not. You have to wonder which has more effect.
I have actually been to this coastline in the United Kingdom and have watched various shows about Mary. It was fantastic to get the feel for the difference in class and how it affected the future of the women in the book. It strikes me that we are told the women were over protected/controlled by the men yet they seemed to do pretty well in the end. I do not see so much different from todays women who struggle to juggle work and their family/home. It is great to have so much detail in a book that you feel like you are really there. Loved previous books by Tracy Chevalier - The Lady & the Unicorn, Remarkable Creatures and The Virgin Blue just to name a few - they have all been really good reads.