Coming off reading Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (and not loving it), I was really looking forward to reading another novel in that same literary vein to scratch that Austenian itch. Age of Innocence was almost that book.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I loved the portrait of 1870s New York we got, especially as a fan of the "proper English society" genre this was a refreshing setting. I was certainly dissapointed by the ending, and felt as though Wharton essentially gave up on her own story 2/3 of the way through. There were so many avenues she could have taken to tie this novel together, and ultimately it fell flat.

I really enjoyed the characters and, though the plot was lacking, the characters were all so well portrayed that I felt I could predict their responses to nearly anything. Newland definitely strikes me as a modern day version of a mansplainer who thinks he's a feminist and I enjoyed watching him sniff after the first woman who is in any way different from the society he was molded by. Men are so simple.