And, of course, I first double check the Goodreads rating before buying, read the biography of the writer (maybe some interview too) and show extreme preference to a classic, these shall be the real thing.
... and I just end up with books full of depression and anger, which, well may be the real thing (who dares say that Selin's journey isn't?) but they abstain from giving you any easy pleasure.
So, how did I solve this one way to hell situation? I just went for a date with a Romanian girl I didn't like. And you might wonder... isn't kissing someone you don't like already depressing enough? Yes, it is... but what if I tell you that the date takes place in a second hand book market? And it's a date, going through the above described ritual it's just not the right thing to do. You must (pretend to) show some interest, enquire about the girl and not the unknown book standing in front of you. So what you do? You just judge it by its cover (and its publishing house - penguin it's a category by itself in any secondhand market)
Well, apart from the cute frontpage, the book name also reminded me a restaurant in Malta (I never had the pleasure to visit it, seems to be permanent closed right now - no wonder to be honest)
Anyway, on the book itself: It's mostly a very technical manual about bride-bazaaring around hundred years ago. For example, do you have money, three daughters to get rid of, but no way to do so since New York's high-society believes you are just cheap? There is a solution! Take a trip to London! The US auntie/matchmaker will be your liaise to the local society (you just have to buy her out with a carpet or something) and you are all set.
Of course, the locals shall complain that you are some sort of buccaneers taking away all sort of Lords, Sirs, you_name_it_hubbies, but, as one of the daughters asks rhetorically: 'Do buccaneers typically pay such piles of cash for their loot?'
I did enjoy this book. It's well written (more or less), humorous and, above all, gets you to phase out by entering a completely different world (never even imagined the struggle of getting your daughters married/sent away)
Cherry on the cake: Happy ending with the true (non arranged) love finally found, a wedding and a trip to Greece. I mean, if the writer hadn't died a few decades before the Greek movies from the 1960s were filmed, I would swear she had watched loads of them...
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