📚 'Rather Dated' and belated December: Monica Dickens's 'The Fancy' 📚

I took ages to get going with this, and as Fuzzy mentioned on the main thread, getting to know and remember all the characters is quite a challenge! But I kept going, and in the end really enjoyed this one.

I was fascinated by the social history of women working in the airplane factory, and their different lives and backgrounds. I am not especially interested in rabbits or breeding animals, but that part of Edward's life was mainly in the background, and where the rabbit shows were described, they too felt like an interesting glimpse of social history. His awful marriage felt so stifling, and I was also struck by the depiction of Wendy's abusive father, who was presumably suffering from a kind of shell-shock or PTSD, but who was quite frightening. The way Wendy and her mother had to tip-toe around him whispering and trying to placate him was quite powerfully evoked. I thought the ending, while inconclusive, was hopeful, and I was certainly rooting for Edward and Wendy to end up together.

One thing that slightly disappointed me was that I felt that some of the other story lines were not resolved, and we didn't get to find out what happened to all 'the girls' in the end, especially Sheila. But overall this has given me an interest in reading more Monica Dickens, and I think I will try Mariana next.