Status Updates From The Wild Dark Flowers (Ruth...

The author is determined to force this into a serious examination of wartime rather than stick with the escapist literary soap that made the first installment so much fun. But it’s not working, because half the book is boring me out of my skull. 💀

Not as good as the first book...too much jumping around & ‘things are doing things.’

“Where all this shall lead, I truly can’t guess. Staff are deserting us even here. My second chambermaid is making bombs. Can you imagine! Bombs! One’s blood runs cold. She couldn’t thread a needle when she worked for us.” ....Hetty needs more pagetime in this book.

“Georgie couldn’t tie his own shoelaces till he was eight, he’s that clumsy.” Jenny gave out a great ragged sigh. “Just a big bloomin’ ox, he is, & twice as stupid. He says it’ll take more than a bullet to stop him, but a bullet would stop anyone, wouldn’t it? He doesn’t believe it. He thinks he’ll just get up & go on.”

‘That [misjudgment], above all, greater even than the whispered scandal & disgrace of having been jilted so theatrically, was the thing that had unnerved her so much. It made her question every opinion she had ever had, & it made her question her own advantages. Because all her popularity & lightheartedness & frivolity, all her good humor, all her prettiness, had brought her to her knees.’