THE CHAPERONE was the November 2013 pick in my online book club, The Reading Cove. And I'm happy to say that overall, I did enjoy this story!
Many today don't even know who silent film star Louise Brooks was, so the success of this book is wonderful in that it will introduce her to a modern-day audience.
This is the story of Cora Carlisle, a housewife recruited to chaperone a teenage Louise Brooks from their small town in Wichita, Kansas to the Big Apple in the summer of 1922. The story is rich in historical detail and drama, and I actually learned much from reading it, several facts I didn't know.
On the downside, I did feel the book ran too long. It "jumped the shark" about 50-75 pages from the eventual end. It felt as though Cora's life, quite the scandalous melodrama in and of itself, just became a canvas for historical fact coverage; and as a result, the story lost some steam by the end.
But that aside, on a whole, I enjoyed THE CHAPERONE more than I did the author's other book, THE REST OF HER LIFE, so I give it a B-.
Many today don't even know who silent film star Louise Brooks was, so the success of this book is wonderful in that it will introduce her to a modern-day audience.
This is the story of Cora Carlisle, a housewife recruited to chaperone a teenage Louise Brooks from their small town in Wichita, Kansas to the Big Apple in the summer of 1922. The story is rich in historical detail and drama, and I actually learned much from reading it, several facts I didn't know.
On the downside, I did feel the book ran too long. It "jumped the shark" about 50-75 pages from the eventual end. It felt as though Cora's life, quite the scandalous melodrama in and of itself, just became a canvas for historical fact coverage; and as a result, the story lost some steam by the end.
But that aside, on a whole, I enjoyed THE CHAPERONE more than I did the author's other book, THE REST OF HER LIFE, so I give it a B-.
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