Literary Pick (**)

A Room with a View

-E.M. Forster

It's hard for me to believe this is considered a romance novel. It seemed like most of the time there were at least half a dozen people guarding Lucy's virtue. I don't understand how an author can take a character from one extreme to the next. Up until the last chapter it was about Lucy Honeychurch asserting her independence as a young lady. She didn't seem at all interested in finding romance. She just wanted independence from her family. Lucy's character was flaky. She becomes engaged to Cecil, but then realizes he's extremely pompous and is only interested in showing off his knowledge for the arts. Then we have George's father, who insists Lucy marry his son because all women should be married, and all this anti-feminist mumbo-jumbo. I think she finally marries George's son to escape her less than sane relatives. This novel was anything but romantic. In fact, it's one of the worst romance novels I've ever read. The back cover is very misleading. When you read the synopsis for the book you feel like you're about to embark on another amazing novel like Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, but it's far from it on every aspect imaginable. I was tempted to give it only one star, but the prose was decent enough.