Community Reviews
"Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating" ... and this book let's you unlock a mystery to another realm of learning about what is it like to be 16, lose your mother, be shipped off to boarding school, not accepted by your peers, and then eventually learning that things are never what they seem.
This is an intriguing coming of age historical fiction that is well done! In a time where women are property to be bartered, where a woman must always *present* herself in the proper and utmost respectable manner, where she has no say in her own life, and where girls are sent away to learn how to be all these things that are expected of them; this is where Gemma learns more about life than she could ever have imagined. And where she and her friends learn... "We're all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect the images back to them as they like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance."
This story has all the growing pains of being a teen girl struggling to find a way to be accepted by her peers without sacrificing too much of herself, her values, or her privacy and balancing with what needs to be done to fit in while not crossing too many lines imagined or real. It tells of the sacrifices women of the time accepted as fate, and of one girl's struggle to find an escape from a path she doesn't want to follow. It tells of the bonds of friendship and how they form and grow and change over time; how friendship morphs from a group of individuals to include others and loss of yet others while the bonds of friendship bloom into a sisterhood built of trust and fear. "We are alone in our togetherness".... once secrets are kept there is no turning back, but no matter what we all have choices and those choices have consequences, one must learn to live with those choices and to make better ones in the future.... "we all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds."
This is an intriguing coming of age historical fiction that is well done! In a time where women are property to be bartered, where a woman must always *present* herself in the proper and utmost respectable manner, where she has no say in her own life, and where girls are sent away to learn how to be all these things that are expected of them; this is where Gemma learns more about life than she could ever have imagined. And where she and her friends learn... "We're all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect the images back to them as they like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance."
This story has all the growing pains of being a teen girl struggling to find a way to be accepted by her peers without sacrificing too much of herself, her values, or her privacy and balancing with what needs to be done to fit in while not crossing too many lines imagined or real. It tells of the sacrifices women of the time accepted as fate, and of one girl's struggle to find an escape from a path she doesn't want to follow. It tells of the bonds of friendship and how they form and grow and change over time; how friendship morphs from a group of individuals to include others and loss of yet others while the bonds of friendship bloom into a sisterhood built of trust and fear. "We are alone in our togetherness".... once secrets are kept there is no turning back, but no matter what we all have choices and those choices have consequences, one must learn to live with those choices and to make better ones in the future.... "we all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds."
3.5 stars. I know I really enjoyed a book when I finish it and want to reread it. I have no desire to reread this one. Yet. I purchased the whole series so I will be diving into the next installment. I'm hoping that since the characters are nicely developed the story will jump right in, unlike the first book which took me a while to get into.
ну ок, не diviners. персонажи немного одномерны - пожалуй, все, кроме джеммы, раскусываются одним зубом. магия не очень понятна пока (но ок, мы только начинаем). викторианский сексизм поскрипывает на зубах, но куда уж без этого. по звездочкам четыре с минусом.
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