The second book of 2021 was Mary Balogh's The Gilded Web, first in her Web series. I read this for week one of the Seasonally Booked Up - Winter of the Wallflower book club hosted by Kelly and Dana. This winter we are going to read wallflower historicals throughout the decades.
I was so torn on how to rate this book. At first it was a little bit hard for me to get into and I was leaning toward 2 or 2.5 stars. However, by the end I went with a solid 3. I loved the hero Edmund. He reminded me a lot of myself and definitely needed to learn to set boundaries and not be so self-sacrificial. I liked and didn't like Alex. She seemed so overly naïve and blind to her position sometimes. It surprised me that once she was introduced to how people really were in the ton, she still acted differently than expected. It's not that I wanted her to hide from the ton and her standing strong was fine. It was the conversations she had with her family and Edmund about why she was standing strong that I had issues with. It just felt like she was so set in her beliefs that she couldn't understand that her family's religious stoutness was so different than most everyone else in the ton. I also feel that she didn't push back against Edmund in the right way until the final couple chapters and I wanted them to get to that point in their relationship earlier. Why did she wait to show Edmund that she needed him to show his vulnerabilities until the last few pages?
Another deciding factor for the 3-stars over 2 was that this was written in 1989 (the year I was born, woo-hoo!). This book was A LOT more feminist than I was expecting, which was a nice surprise. I didn't like how Alex dealt with her father and mother in the end. I found myself wishing she and her mother had made other choices once the engagement was announced and both families returned to Edmund's country seat. Another weird thing that came from this being an older book was that the focus was not only on the main couple. There was a lot of time spent in the siblings' views and their forming relationships was a lot more present than I expected. I'm just so used to one book featuring only the main couple and any hints of other/future couples stay in the peripheral. While reading, this also felt long. It is 480 pages which is on the longer side of historical romances, but it felt longer to me than The Sea King. I struggled to get into it at times.
Overall, it was an interesting read and I'm happy to finally try Mary Balogh. I did enjoy her writing style and will definitely pick up another one of her books. I've heard great things about her Bedwyn series.
Have you read The Gilded Web?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh, 3-stars, 2 days, eBook, 480 pages, Published 1989
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