How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life

Fantastic, funny, engrossing, engaging, sweet, and all around good book. Can a Cambridge blue-blood, Harvard faculty brat, drifting under-achiever junk dealer wannabe find a little happiness and perhaps even (gulp) love? Even after getting her heart broken by the boy next door and love of her life? Well why not, and have a few wacky misadventures on the way there. This was a great book because all the jerks get their just desserts and the poor little Boston Brahmin is so human and fallible you can't help but like her and cheer her on. Great story and well written to boot.

Harvard Faculty family. Discovers she has a valuable antique once the property of Elizabeth Barrett Browning -- thanks to a visit to Antiques Roadshow. Her strange family history - mother and her female "friend" died together in India. Family feud about ownership - leads to her falling in love; her happiness comes from new relationship not from value of her "pot". Funny, nice read.

I liked this book.

I am partial to local books - books set in Metro Boston. This book had a really wonderful sense of place. I felt like her portrayal of things in Cambridge - specifically Harvard Square and Inman Square smacked of authenticity.

The story rambled in a charming sort of way. Some of it was far fetched but I was willing to go along for the ride. Some of the side characters could have used some finer detail - fewer bold strokes.

I particularly liked the very ending of this book. I felt it was a resolution I could really identify with and felt satisfied by.

And.... one of the most striking covers I have seen in a long time.

Cons: The protagonist, Abby, is whiny and her please-use-me-as-your-doormat personality is irritating and self serving, as is her tendency toward self put downs; they have an air of falseness about them. The ending is far too predictable. In some instances the symbolism is embarrassingly overstated.

Pros: Unique writing, word choices, and plot. Lots of great literary references. Much of the writing is very nice. Despite the ending being far too predictable, it is the ending I wanted. :)

Protagonist: Abby Randolph, Harvard drop-out and struggling antiques dealer
Setting: Present-day Boston, Massachusetts

In her mid-30s and stuck in a rut, Abby Randolph has all but given up on
herself. Her mother died in India the year before. Her childhood sweetheart
and ex-fiancé wrote a tell-all novel exposing all of Abby's secrets. Her
most recent boyfriend has left her for another woman. But when a colleague
takes a look at an old "nothing special" chamber pot in her booth--the one
she sticks fake flowers in to bring color to the place--he tells her she
should wrap it up and take it to the "Antiques Roadshow" while they're in
town filming. She does, and the experts tell her that it belonged to
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and is show more worth...well...a pot of money. The chamber
pot's pedigree sets in motion a whole series of misadventures that force
Abby to get off the couch and get in gear.

If you're not interested in "stuff" or collecting or the possibilities of
finding treasure, chunks of this book aren't going to appeal to you at all.
It appealed to me, having followed my grandparents to all sorts of auctions
and estate sales when I was a child. Abby was an interesting character. She
got me involved in the story and kept the pages turning. This was a light, fast
read perfect for a weekend afternoon. show less

I had some problems with the heroine's self-pitying attitude and general naivete. While I understand that it was necessary to demonstrate these qualities in order to effect a transformation, I felt they were taken to an extreme that made it difficult to sympathize. At the same time, it was a pleasant, quick read that engaged my interest due to skillful plotting.

Mameve Medwed weaves a very interesting tale, which reads like a memoir, of Harvard drop-out, Abby Randolph, who comes from a family of Ivy League graduates. Abby is a soft hearted, albeit naive girl who stumbles her way onto the Antiques Road Show, with her inherited chamber pot, and encounters trouble in both the romantic as well as the antiques department.

Medwed's characters are well thought out and interesting, it's a laugh out loud book that brings back those horrid memories of mistakes, we've likely all made, with men, business acumen (or lack thereof), and family relations. I highly recommend this easy to read, attention getting and fast paced book to anyone looking to delve into a memorable protagonists life while escaping a show more few hours of your own. show less