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Loading... A Song for Summer (original 1997; edition 2008)by Eva Ibbotson (Author)
Work InformationA Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson (1997)
Books Read in 2015 (634) Best School Stories (94) Books about World War II (111) » 4 more Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Usually I like Eve Ibbotson and am a devoted reader. This one just annoys the snot out of me -- it's like she took her other heroines and went as far out to the logical extreme as she could go. Ellen is jsut the perfect pinnacle of the housewifely arts -- and that would be ok, maybe, since she seems to have some spirit when it comes to disciplining children. But she's such a doormat emotionally, so flat and passive and self-sacrificing in all her romantic endeavors that I could not like her, and I liked Marek even less. Well, that was immersive, wonderful, and utterly heart-wrenching. I'm seriously impressed, as I'm reading Ibbotson's works, that while a lot of thematic elements recur, there's no sense of repetition, and I've yet to find a lead character I wasn't able to invest in significantly. That's some fine skill indeed, and this book exemplifies it well. no reviews | add a review
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On the eve of World War II, a young Englishwoman takes a job as housemother in a boarding school in Austria. She falls in love with the groundsman who is in reality a Czech composer. The arrival of the Nazis leads to drama, the lovers are separated but they will reunite. By the author of Madensky Square. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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More delightful writing, quirky characters, and a fun setting from Ibbotson. This is one of my top three of her romances, for although it shares many of the predictable elements of other books, it feels fresh to me. Who wouldn't love Marek's habit of defenestrating Nazis, for instance? And while I do find parts of the ending frustrating, it's notable that the lovers aren't kept apart by a mere miscommunication. All in all, a satisfying light read. ( )