The Looking Glass
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Review
Bitter, balanced and sophisticated...Powerful tale of female need, desire and projection ... highly compelling (LITERARY REVIEW )
A gift to treasure (The TIMES )
A gift to treasure (The TIMES )
THE TIMES
'A gift to treasure'
Inside This Book
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A disappointing and dated "feminist perspective",
By A Customer
This review is from: The Looking Glass (Paperback)
This novel would be a fantastic recommendation for a teenage female with any ideas of feminism, or for daughters whose mothers are trying to teach a sense of female history! If you have read and enjoyed Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson and Margaret Atwood, you may find this novel entertaining, but not really rewarding or challenging. The Looking Glass of the title is a clumsy metaphor representing the changes in the lives of the various female protagonists. The beginning of the novel reads a little like a romance and indeed progresses much on that note, with the metaphor of the title diminishing in importance and eventually disappearing completely without any satisfactory explanation. The multiple narrative used by Roberts in the book present us with a range of interesting female characters, however, each narrative ends at a point when the reader is becoming familiar with the character, if not fond of her, and it is very frustrating to then have to jump to a new and unfamiliar perspective. The early promise of magical realism with an idea of the enchantments of the sea is sadly lost as the novel progresses and a number of scenes end abruptly or develop unconvincingly. The story line is interesting at times, with a semi biographical 'life of a poet' feel, but by the end of the novel the coincidences become almost farcical and the meeting between the female protagonists is ultimately disatisfying. Having read other novels by the same author I was disappointed with this book. It does have some interesting ideas throughout, but overall the early promise of magical events and well drawn characters is never fulfilled.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Exquisitely written - but does it hang together?,
This review is from: The Looking Glass (Paperback)
I was surprised to see this book only had a single 2-star review. I agree with some of the first reviewer's reservations - the perspective changes a little too often to really get a full sense of any one character, and I too was disappointed that some of the haunting magical realism in the early pages never fully unfolded. It finishes, perhaps, as a slightly more ordinary story than it began. Not a story you finish and then walk around inhabiting its world and emotions for the next week.
That said, it is gorgeously written in places, and maybe worth picking up if you like beautifully rendered detail for its own sake. I still remember some of the passages about the kitchen and garden of the little house on the Norman coast where Genevieve arrives as a maid. Even if the successive stories of the characters don't entirely hang together in a satisfying whole, I enjoyed it, and will probably read it again sometime. (I should mention I did pay about a pound for it in a charity shop, so maybe that influenced my expectations!)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What a great novel,
By Patricia L. Hamilton "pattyhamilton" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Looking Glass (Paperback)
I was a little leary about starting this book, something about the jacket description or the cover, I'm not sure. But once I picked up this novel I realized I was definitley wrong. This novel is so well written, there were sentences I read more than once just to be able to take it all in. If you like a lyrical well-written novel you need to read this!
2.0 out of 5 stars
Better Books to Choose,
By H. P. Carr "hollyfrog" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Looking Glass (Paperback)
My book club chose this book based on a short write-up in a recommended reading list for book clubs. A story from the perspective of four women who loved the same man. We had just finished a much more serious book and were looking for something a little saucier. This book is odd. The book is not evenly weighted among the women, who are not fully developed as characters, each of which you feel a lack of attachment to. The perspective of the book shifts and be a bit abrupt at time and includes bits of information that just don't seem to fit with the storyline. Consistent with the rest of the book it all just ends randomly. My roommate read it and immediately put it in the recyling bin because she wouldn't recommend it to anyone and wouldn't bother to resell it.
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