Customer Reviews

Pastel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I did not appreciate Georgette Heyer's 'modern' novels and mysteries when I first discovered her in my twenties, now in my forties, I have re-read them and realized how wonderful they are. Pastel is the story of an older sister who loves her younger sister dearly but feels totally eclipsed by her personality or 'pastel' in comparison. The way she deals with her feelings and realizes her life is the one she really wants is the crux of the story. The story is very much of it's time period - no liberated women in this book, so it may seem more dated to some, but it's a worthwhile read and beautifully written.

"Pastel" is not for people who expect the 'usual', lighthearted Heyer. It's a contemporary (1920's) novel about the intense jealousy of one sister towards another, and it deals with it in a fairly realistic manner. As such, "Pastel" is probably one of the most psychologically complex of Heyer's novels, and, in my opinion, it succeeds superbly, in realistically delineating relationships between Siblings. One of my favorite Heyer novels.

Another of Georgette Heyers surpressed books, this is a charming tale, never saccharine or improbable. It tells the story of a young woman trying to reconcile her ideas of love and happiness with reality, and tells it well, our heroins insecurities making her the more endearing. Well worth the read, especially for hardened Heyer fans, her references to animals being particularly funny.

A Novice Reviewer's Viewpoint

Pastel is set in the 1910's and is of its era, where people in books and on the stage seem brittle. Perhaps because it was the age when the middle and upper classes in Britain did not reveal their true feelings, but I couldn't get "into the skin" of the characters and lose myself.

Saying that, of course, shows how well G.H. manages to portray the world she is writing about so well.

Probably because I prefer G.H's later books set in the Regency period and written in a more lighthearted vein, I found Pastel disappointing.

Set in the '20s, Pastel is not at all what I've come to expect of Heyer. It's witty dialogue doesn't quite make up for the lack of action in this comedy of manners. The characters are not so well developed as one normally finds in Heyer's period pieces (Regency, etc.). It's a pleasant enough little read, but it's not the normal romp Heyer's readers expect.

I was hoping for a Regency book when I read this one, not one set in the 1920's, in post-WWI. And, as another reviewer said, this book was not as lighthearted as her regency books I've read. That being said, I think that Georgette Heyer did a nice job with her characters. Georgette Heyer's ability to write books in different genres and of different types within the genre is pretty impressive.

The romance in this book was on some levels depressing. I don't mind some disappointments happening to my heroines, but the disappointment in this book was long-lived. About a year. You feel that the character is settling for the man that becomes her husband, and a lot of the book just seems to be about a young lady's view of the world and her life through a crush, her dashed hopes, inner turmoil over the differences between herself and her sister, marriage to someone she is not passionately in love with, and then her married life. Not my sort of romance. It feels more like a "slice of life" than a romance.

A diehard Georgette Heyer fan, I was completely disappointed in this book. The dialogue, the plot, the background: nothing even remotely resembled any Heyer book I have ever read. Do not read and certainly do not buy!