Customer Reviews

The Finishing Touches (Wheeler Hardcover)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really wanted to love this book. I love Brit chick lit - set a story in London and you've got my interest immediately. And there is nothing horrible about this book, but there's just not very much going on at all.

Betsy is sweet. Bone-deep sweet. It's easy to like her, but there's just not much more there. She's not terribly funny, she's not tragic, she's not even really struggling financially or anything interesting. There are hints that her personality changed some at 18, but it sounds like she went from being much more fun to pretty boring, and since the book is set in the "now", well...

In fact, NONE of the characters have an edge of any sort. The best friend is a little flaky, but not ridiculous. The 18 year old girls at the finishing school might act edgy, but are really sweet underneath. There is no villain - or, if there are supposed to be, in the current headmistress or a former pupil/femme fatale - they are so mild as to not cause any real worries.

Betsy's search for her birth parents is lukewarm at best. I think she's right about her "new classes" (I'm trying not to give anything away that's not in the blurb on amazon.com here) but even that doesn't lead to a ton of conflict.

There's a bit of a romance, but it's nothing torrid, depressing, or funny.

The dialogue is well-written, the settings are well-drawn, the characters are easy to picture, the writer's grasp of grammar and good writing style are there - which is worth the 3 stars to me - but there's just not enough plot or emotion going on. I don't normally love what I'd call "book club books" full of depression, or at the least self-conflict, but I would have still preferred that to this. I don't know even how I'd describe this book. It's not exactly a romance, it's not very comedic, it's not deep... I don't know what it is. I found myself putting this book down after every chapter, frankly because I was just getting bored with it.

As I said, it's perfectly pleasant, but it's nothing but a beach read. Even for that, it's lacking drama or any other full-scale emotion to draw you in. It's just missing that "wow" factor for a great book.

Not, mind you, that I ever was able to do more in Harrod's than visit the expensive toilet - but, since the abandoned baby of the first page is left in a Harrod's marmalade box, I thought it an appropriate reference. :) The wit and cleverness of this delightful book made it a treat I gobbled down quickly, with laughter, wistfulness at times, and occasionally deep compassion.

Hester Browne's gift for expression is superb. The descriptions are subtle but exceedingly humorous. There also is an underlying fact, which would have affected the upper classes even more than most, that London has changed immensely in the past twenty years, and that, even at the time of the 'marmalade box baby,' the customs described were preserved by few. Images of women in 1980 learning Victorian customs about how to accept and decline marriage proposals and dine with royalty are a hilarious contrast to their counterparts just two decades later.

Incidentally, some of the advice from the finishing school is not a bad idea at any age.

The book is a cut above what normally falls into the 'chick lit' category. It has an underlying, subtle wisdom that rises it above the usual fare. Few authors in that genre have Hester's ability with the language - and of capturing much of human nature, warmth, weakness, and hope in the process.

I really enjoyed this story; it captured me right from the beginning, but that may be just because I really wish I had been dropped off at a finishing school as a baby. I love the ladylike advice strewn through the story. This is my first Hester Brown book, but it will not be my last. She has a nice flowing tone to her writing. Great for relaxing on the couch!

I dearly love to read fiction set in England. It's at times almost a different language. The characters too can be quite a bit wonderfully eccentric. Browne's characters are wonderful and well detailed, from the beautiful but ditzy Liv who doesn't know how to iron, use a mop, or pay the mortgage to the vastly different men in her life, the party planner gorgeous flirt Jamie or the more City-type bursar Mark with the dry sense of humor. The students are also unique as are the teachers of the finishing school. The idea of the finishing school and how our heroine turns it around was the utterly fluff part for me. Too shallow and nonsensical at times - getting out an old pram to teach the students how to walk in high heels, etc. Too frivolous, but Browne's sense of humor and characters kept me reading.

The Finishing Touches by Hester Brown


In 1981, an orphaned baby girl is left at the doorstep of a posh English finishing school, Phillimore Academy for Young Ladies. The only thing she has is a cashmere shawl and a pin with a diamond-studded bee hanging from it with a note attached: "Please look after my baby. I want her to grow up to be a proper lady. Thank you". No one has a clue as to who could have left this girl child. And that is how the novel Finishing Touches starts.

This book has all the right things going for a light, fun chick lit read. Betsy is now 27 at that prime age for a chick lit novel. We have the mystery surrounding Betsy's parentage, the obligatory yummy man who happens to be her best friends brother and someone that Betsy has a huge crush on, inner conflict about finding out who her mother was. Was she one of the girls from the school? Betsy has mixed feelings over lying about her credentials and current job. Then to make matters worse she takes on the task to see if she can yank the antiquated Finishing school into the 21st century. We have other conflicts with the "old school" principal and the prerequisite semi-evil and semi-hateful widower grabber. Oddly this is one part of the story that I do not feel was wrapped up to my satisfaction.


Potential abounds, and the writer does follow the proven formula, but quite frankly, I can see this as a better movie than a book. It is as if Ms Brown has written this as a screenplay and not the novel it is!.

A lovely read for those who have read the rest of Ms Browne's books. A quick, mindless, fluffy lovely "beach" read.

Betsy Phillimore is home for the memorial service for her mother, Lady France Phillimore. Her father, Lord Phillimore, asks Betsy to revamp the finishing school that has been in the Phillimore family for years and was run by Lady Phillimore.

The finishing school is on its last legs since nobody in the 21st century goes to be "finished" anymore and manners and etiquette are in sad decline. Betsy sets out to bring the Phillimore Academy for Young Girls into the modern world.

Along the way, Betsy looks for love and also for her "real" parents since she was left on the Phillimore doorstep when she was an infant. The story follows Betsy's makeover of the Academy, her recognition that the Phillimore's may have been her adoptive parents but they were her true family, and she ends up falling in love in the midst of everything.

A good read but I enjoyed Hester Browne's Little Agency Series a bit more.

This was my first Hester Browne book and I loved it. I was never really interested in the premise behind her Little Agency books, but the plot summary of this one drew me in. I think there are enough reviews about the basic plot that I won't go into that here. But what I really enjoyed about this book is how the author tried to inject a sense of reality into it.

Obviously, the book is fiction and clearly so. I mean, a fnishing school, and rich girls, etc. While this may be reality for some, I'm going to assume that for most people, these things don't exist outside of books. And yet, the main characters are fairly down-to-earth. For example, I love how the main character in this book does not go off and do stupid things because she's stupid and thinks that her plans and ideas make sense. Rather, she's grounded in reality, has a brain, and knows how to use it. Her friends are also real people (for the most part).

I disagree with what a previous reviewer posted about how the lack of "meat" made this book unenjoyable. For me, there doesn't need to be crazy antics, stupid schemes by even stupider (yes, I know that's not a real word) girls and contrived dilemmas in order for me to feel that there is something going on in a book. This is essentially a light and fun book about a young woman who is going through her life and the changes in her life. Sounds dull, but in all honesty, that's what many of the NY Times Bestsellers and Oprah's recommended books are all about--people coming to realizations. Only those books try to inject a bunch of false angst in order to give "meaning" to their books. For me, I'd rather have an enjoyable light read without feeling as though I have to check out half of my brain in order to convince myself that the really stupid girls (and their friends) that you often find in chick lit actually exist.

I also enjoyed this book because the idea of a finishing school has always kind of interested me, it being such a different world. And I have to say that I picked up some good tips. Went and got my first lash tint after reading this.

I really tried to like this book because I liked the whole premise of it. However, I really had to just put it down; it was irritating me. When it takes a page and half to get from the car to the front door, that's just too much angst. And, it all seems to be like that. Sorry, I really wanted to like it; maybe I'm too old for her market.

It took me longer to read than normal since it was a bit slow at times but I thought it was cute & charming. I learned a few little tidbits too from the pointers given at the beginning of each chapter. I giggled quite a bit throughout the book. I loved the humor. I wished Betsy & Jamie's relationship would have developed more until the very end. Great summer read!
~

Do you need to know which silverware to use when you're served a banana for dessert? Maybe, if it were about 150 years ago and bananas were considered exotic and were very expensive and hard to get. Nowadays you're more likely to find yourself wondering how to properly use chopsticks or whether you eat edemame with your fingers or a fork.

I'm a huge fan of manners for the modern girl and this book was super entertaining! The protagonist, as a newborn, was left on the doorsteps of a prominent finishing school where she grew up. Nearly 30 years after that fateful day of being abandoned by her birth mother, she sets out to learn the identity of her mother while at the same time saving the finishing school that has gone out of fashion with modern times.

Great read!