It’s a cute story idea - story idea. The problem is, this is a novel. The edition I read was a 423 page novel. My main dislike in reading this was its repetitive nature. Form and content did not fit together amiably. Bluntly put - Hero’s missteps are possibly amusing the first or second time. The third time is stretching the reader’s good graces. By the end of the novel, it was plain annoying. At any point did it occur to her to consult someone about what she was doing wrong, since her own instincts kept running her off the road? At any point did it occur to her to ask her husband plainly what he expected of her? At any point did it occur to her to just plain stay home a while?
One can excuse some of this due to the woman’s age, but in those days seventeen was considered an adult. And there are many mature, sensible teens, then as now. I’m afraid I wound up judging “Hero Wantage Sherington” as a bit of a nitwit. The book would have been much more intriguing had she done all this as some sort of plan - the only action available to her as recourse. But no, she was simply a ninny who blundered her way through life. She was no wily wabbit catching the hunter; she was a ‘kitten’ (her nickname in the novel) nabbed by the same societal trap incessantly.
And there was my second reservation in reading this book. I could not find one likable character. I could not find one person to root for. Either the characters were codependent hangers-on (Sherry’s bachelor buddies), or they were shallow and selfish nitwits. In some cases, both. I wasn’t expecting Tolstoy; but I was expecting characters that varied from page to page even a bit, who had more than two dimensions. Reading Friday’s Child was like watching a parade of paper dolls. The scenery and costuming might be pretty but not enough to bolster the novel. This would’ve made a much better short story, possibly a novella, in my opinion. The plot seems contrived, but what’s worse, I really didn’t care whether Lord and Lady Sherington resolved their differences by the final page. I also didn’t care whether the villain got his comeuppance, (he’s so cliched anyway I could practically see him twirling his handlebar mustache) or whether lovesick suitor George finally got his ideal woman (the much sought-after “Incomparable”).
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