The Luxe by Anna Godbersen

Not recommended: There are two characteristics of this book that I would like talk about: the unpredictability of the characters in the story and the predictability of the story.

The beginning of this story began with the author revealing the end of the story first, then going back to the beginning and leading the story up to the end. This was intriguing and caught my interest at first. Since the story took place in the late 1800's, the characters used a more traditional, almost "Pride and Prejudice" language which also helped me get into the story. Once I got to about half way through the book, I could predict how they were going to get to the ending of the story because this was revealed at the beginning. I probably would have kept reading the book if I was interested at all in the characters or their development. The weirdest part of the book was how each chapter jumped to a different character's point of view in the story. This would be fine, and it is actually creative, but the author did not focus on the characters who were important. The two main characters are the two sisters, and if she would have told the story from only these two characters and developed them a little more, I would have been more interested in finishing the story. Thus, the characters became unpredictable (in a bad way) because they were not developed enough. Needless to say, I did not finish this book.