Brother of the More Famous Jack (edition 1998)

"Brother of the More Famous Jack" is a fast, entertaining read as long as you're not looking for much insight into the characters. The narrator is a young woman who falls in love with the eccentric family of one of her professors. The family comes across as a bit snobby and pretentious, but they're fun to read about anyway. My main issue was that even though the book is written in the first person, I came away with very little idea of the narrator's motivations for anything, particularly when it comes to the men she chooses. The writing has an incredibly matter-of-fact tone to it, so that even when there's a major event or tragedy it's often dealt with in a couple of lines. I didn't feel that anything that happened was unrealistic; the plot twists make sense, but I didn't get much of a sense of the inner life of the characters. ( )