As usual, when something is slightly comedic, I find it completely deflates the fiction, with few exceptions. The tone of the voice here really bugged me, perhaps exasperated by narration? Had it been filtered through my mind, perhaps it would be more compelling.

I was pleasantly surprised by the kindness it is concerned with as a young woman attempts an alternate trajectory than what the well intentioned around her try to set her on, though. Yet even some of this interactions with men, despite the better-than-average treatment of women for a classic, are still problematic, consent-wise. And while this is a sigh of the times, reading is an empathy exercise, yes? and so spending your time populating the problematic in your mind, influencing your own thoughts and emotions, is an inevitability. There is reading through the uncomfortable when it is instructive for your own person, and there is just simply being uncomfortable, which this is, with a particular dynamic between our main and a certain main.

Though much lauded, I found not so much here as I expected. I suspect a lot of it has to do with a synchronicity with the voice, which I never developed, unfortunately. Not a bad read, of course. But as I rate everything by expectations, 3 being meeting expectations and 4 exceeding them, this is a solid 3. I’m quite at peace asking classics to live up to their labels. Plenty do.