In 1947 a young advertising copywriter named Frances Gerety changed the world with a single tagline: “A Diamond is Forever.” It kicked into gear a national obsession with diamonds, weddings, and idealized marriages from which we’ve yet to recover. “A rich, layered, exhilarating novel spanning nearly a hundred years, The Engagements captures four wholly unique…
Tag: feminism
Review: The Full Moon Bride
Soorya has spent most of her life alternately railing against and rolling her eyes at her family’s Indian heritage. But now that she’s hit 30 with nary a boyfriend in sight, she’s decided to get a husband the old-fashioned way: by letting her parents choose one for her. Trouble is, no man seems interested in…
Review: The Little Women Letters
Sisters Emma, Lulu, and Sophie Atwater are anything but peas in a pod, and are never sure whether they love or irritate each other more. Lulu in particular feels overshadowed — she’s less successful than her siblings, and has spent much of her adult life working dead-end jobs with no romantic prospects in sight. When…
Boudoir Photography: or, Yea, That’s Been Done
I recently stumbled across an article entitled “Boudoir photography: The divisive new wedding trend” in which the author discusses the “new” and scandalous practice of brides presenting sexy photos of themselves to their soon-to-be-husbands. May I be the first to say, sigh. Not because I’m incensed at the trend; rather because the fact that this…
Thoughts on Bitterblue
For those of you who aren’t aware, I don’t very often review every book of a series, mainly because it’s too hard to do so without slinging spoilers left and right. And in the case of Bitterblue, the third book in Kristin Cashore’s Graceling Realm series, one has to be careful about revealing spoilers from…