Book Review - A Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner

This is about a lady waiting for her life after husband, kids & Princess Anne to begin. Though her life was filled with activity I don’t get the sense it was filled with meaning because she only reports from a cool distance what other people around her did. You get a good dose of history, but no idea of who she was as a person. This “extraordinary” life was given to her. She neither fought for it or longed for it. Just accepted it and walked through it. For her, life just happened. Missing the personal drive that powers most autobiographies, this falls flat. A better title for this is “A Lady Vanishes”. Oops - That’s already taken!

Book Review - Oona Out of Order by Margarite Montifore

Well, it was a good idea - sort of. A woman travels through her own life out of sequence. She jumps from 19 to 51 first - and then to other ages, back and forth. We never learn why.
I realized this at chapter 3 and should have stopped reading then and there.

I wish the writer had thought this one out. As it is, Oona doesn’t experience her years out of order, she just views them that way. Nothing she sees at 51 changes her at 27. ( Because if it did, 51 would change. ) While visiting age 51 she meets someone who she doesn’t know she’s met, but who knows he has met her. But how can this scheme work when they re- meet at younger ages? It doesn’t.

By the end, Oona learns how to appreciate life but it matters not one whit that she went out of order to do so. The whole time travel scheme is irrelevant. And I think it is much harder to understand your life out of sequence than in sequence.

Many call this book one of the best reads of the year.

I call it a gimmick.