Book Review: Snobbery with Violence

The Blurb on the Back:

High Society…

After a brief and ill-advised alliance with the Suffragette movement, Lady Rose Summer’s debut season in London society turns out to be a complete disaster. Rose’s father suspects that her fiancé, Sir Geoffrey Blandon, is a first-class scoundrel and calls in Captain Harry Cathcart to investigate.

But when a malicious guest is found dead in suspicious circumstances, Rose becomes far more interested in discovering the truth than in landing more appropriate suitor. As Harry and Rose begin to unravel a web of lies and rumour, a clever murder sets out to make Rose’s dreadful season her last.

My Thoughts:

After finishing this book, I wondered if 3 years of Literature studies have completely tainted my opinion of “fun” novels. I finished reading and wondered why the ending was so perfect. Actually, it probably wasn’t; but let me start from the beginning.

This book is a fun read, it’s easy to get through and falls into my category of Junk Food Books. I don’t mean it’s junk, I just mean if you want something quick, easy and you don’t want to think too much, then this book fits the bill. There’s nothing wrong with that, I just don’t see it being studied in Universities ten years from now. I love junk food books simply because they are quick and easy, I don’t have to worry about what the author is trying to say, I don’t have to think about the era in which the book was read, I don’t need to worry about modernism, post modernism or the avante guard; I can just read it.

Rose is a conflicting character, on one hand I find her a strong protagonist and then there were times I thought she might as well have said “make someone else the hero in this book, I’m going to go sit in the corner and watch what happens.” She kept flipping between being the strong, motivated character to being the impossible teenager who didn’t really want to be there. She’s suppose to have gotten into some trouble because of the suffragette movement, but she doesn’t really strike me as a suffragette; she’s more a young woman with conflicted views about herself and her society, and simply uses the suffragette movement as a means of expressing her confusion.

I feel I started to dislike her as a character, she was more a hindrance than anything else but at the same time there was also something appealing about her, I just can’t determine what it is.

The ending was a little bit too neat for me, I felt myself being frustrated as well. Potentially there was room for a huge twist in the end, but it was somewhat predictable. I didn’t like how the end was handled, but I guess in the context of when it was situated and who was involved, it also sort of makes sense.

I’m not going to say I hate this book, because I don’t. I actually really enjoyed it. The union with Harry, his man servant and Rose with her maid intrigues me; they could potentially be a good group in further story lines. Like I mentioned earlier, Rose does strike me as interesting when she’s not busy being annoying and flipping between who she wants to be, who she thinks she is and who everyone else wants her to be. I like the general story line and it definitely reminds me of those murder mystery parties that people host, it’s a lot of fun following along trying to figure out “who dunnit”.