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Title: A Big Disappointment
Review: After being drawn in by the magical possibilities of a Rossetti painting on the dustjacket (of the hardcover) and an epigraph from Mother Goose, I was disappointed that what followed was sheer hokum. Most disappointing: the characters are based on cliched ideas. For example, the author reinforces the tired dichotomy that women are either rational and practical or wild and irresponsible. And the author's primary characterization of all the prominent females in the book is that they are stunningly beautiful, as if she has nothing else in her bag of tricks to make them likable. This is a world where a woman must use her beauty to secure the love of a handsome man before she can like herself, and that is very unfortunate given the possibilities for strong feminine characters in such a storyline. The ending is likewise predictable and cloying, which seems to be a prerequisite for authors who eventually end up in the "Oprah Bookclub."
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