Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

To the One I Love the Best: Episodes from the Life of Lady Mendl by Ludwig Bemelmans

1 review

heather_freshparchment's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal death, Fatphobia, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Medical content, Car accident, and Classism

I received a digital ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I have loved Madeline since the age of three, so I was very excited to find out that Bemelmans wrote for adults, too. I didn't enjoy this memoir as much as I had hoped, but that is not entirely Bemelmans' fault. His writing was beautiful and it was fun to hear about his personal life. I really disliked everyone else he came into contact with, though, including Lady and Sir Charles Mendl. I don't mind eccentricity, but to me Lady Mendl's eccentric monologues were hard to follow in this memoir. Any of the guests that the Mendls had to dinner were portrayed as one-dimensional, which made it hard to like them, either, especially when casual racial slurs escape their lips later on. I was also disappointed that none of Bemelmans' drawings decorated these escapades, but they may be included in the finished copy. Overall, Bemelmans is a talented writer, but I didn't care for the subject of this piece.