I was able to download The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton for free to my Kindle. Below is my unbiased review.
Alright, first off I love the cover design for this version of The House of Mirth. I also thought that Emma Messenger did a phenomenal job reading it. But after listening to The House of Mirth, I thought it was long, drawn out, B-O-R-I-N-G, and DEPRESSING! Yes, it has decent characterization and is a good period piece, but I thought it was awful!
I set this novel aside several times and almost didn't finish it. The only reason I did finish listening to The House of Mirth was because of all its glowing reviews on Amazon and because I wanted to see what finally became of the leading character, Lily Bart.
The following is a summary of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton from Amazon's website:
A bestseller when it was originally published nearly a century ago, Wharton's first literary success was set amid the previously unexplored territory of fashionable, turn-of-the-century New York society, an area with which she was intimately familiar.
The tragic love story reveals the destructive effects of wealth and social hypocrisy on Lily Bart, a ravishing beauty. Impoverished but well-born, Lily realizes a secure future depends on her acquiring a wealthy husband. Her downfall begins with a romantic indiscretion, intensifies with an accumulation of gambling debts, and climaxes in a maelstrom of social disasters.
More a tale of social exclusion than of failed love, The House of Mirth reveals Wharton's compelling gifts as a storyteller and her clear-eyed observations of the savagery beneath the well-bred surface of high society. As with The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome, this novel was also made into a successful motion picture.I'm giving The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton a rating of 2 stars out of 10 stars.
Until my next post, happy reading!!
I tried reading House of MIrth in high school because it was a classic and I'd heard great things about it, but ultimately I didn't finish it, for the same reasons you mentioned. Thought I was crazy for not liking it, but feels nice to not be alone, haha. It could be the whole "period piece" thing that makes it a classic even though it's not that great of a read. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the review!! And am glad that I am not the only one that didn't enjoy reading this classic.
DeleteI've been wanting to read this one. I was supposed to back in high school but I never got around it. It seems that it's one of those classics that people are expected to read no matter if it's good or bad. We'll see if I ever decide to actually read it.
ReplyDeleteWell, I read it becuase it's a classic and it was free. I'd never read anything by Edith Wharton before, so wanted to give one of her novels a try... Let's just say, I'm not eager to try another one of her novels.
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