Not my favourite Elizabeth Taylor novel, but not a bad read.
It’s her last novel and has a slightly elegiac tone, but generally it’s just another one of her bitingly intelligent portraits of people.
My favourite part of this novel is the fact that the central characters are openly flawed, I love it when women don’t just have to be easy to love. I also love the descriptions of babysitting and the social pressure of feeling like you need to be nice to someone you’d rather not see. There are some delicious moments of irony and black humour. I think it works well as a rather concise novel, it doesn’t stray into offshoots.
A few surprises and twists and turns keep you guessing until the end.
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