Friday 18 September 2009

The Inheritance ~ Louisa May Alcott

As a little orphaned, lonely child Edith Avelon was adopted by a wealthy, caring family, the Hamiltons. She's grown up in this family and loves them like her own family and they love her back ... all that is but cousin Ida. Lady Ida envies Edith's grace, beauty, charm, and the love and attention people give her. Edith is very shy and humble and knows not why Ida hates her so. Edith's only wish in life is to be loved and wanted.
One day a Lord Percy comes to visit the Hamiltons and is quite taken with Edith ... much to Lady Ida's distress. She vows to make Edith's life miserable and to attract and steal the love and attention which Lord Percy seems to bestow upon Edith.
So much does Lady Ida hate Edith that she is willing to lie and steal and cheat to ruin and upset Edith's happy life.
But, even more to the ruin of Lady Ida, but to the joy of everyone else, Edith's past is discovered and the shocking truth is what no one would have guessed.
I smiled through this whole book! I loved it. It kind of has a Cinderella feel to it! Alcott wrote it when she was seventeen and it shows. It is clearly a written by a teenager. Not at all suspenseful like "A Long Fatal Love Chase".
As I said, I loved this book, it was a quick, easy read and I highly recommend it.

4 comments:

Melanie said...

I have watched the movie and absolutely love it! I would love to get my hands on the book too! :-D

Nikki said...

I will have to read both of those Alcott books. :)

Amanda said...

I've watched the movie, but never read the book.

Nikki said...

I couldn't help but laugh inwardly at this novel. The characters were constantly weeping; even the men! I am wondering if someone had a hidden onion in their pocket that they periodically cut open because if memory serves me correctly every character cried at least once during that story; either in misery or joy. But it was a cute book. ☺ And it was short so it only took me a couple hours to read.

I will say though that you can tell that this was Alcott's first novel. She seemed to have a plethora of ideas that she wanted to include in the story-line. Many events seemed like she was just trying to place them in the story because she liked the idea of having them: The evening boat ride is a keen example of this.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel, but I wouldn't read it again as I think the writing was a little "fanciful", if you will.