Ruth lives in the beautiful city of Vienna and is wildly in love with Heini Radik, a brilliant young pianist. But her world is about to change fore...
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reviews
Mar 08, 2009
Beth
rated it: 
After reading the above blurb about the book, I was excited to dive in. Oh yes, this seemed to fit neatly into my preferred genre! I couldn’t tell if it was going to be more romance-ish or historical-fiction-y, but I figured either way I was set.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I really found myself struggling to get into this book. Eva Ibbotson’s writing style is flowy — I picked out one sentence that were so long, being packed with five or six wordy dependent clauses, that it lit More...
Imagine my surprise, then, when I really found myself struggling to get into this book. Eva Ibbotson’s writing style is flowy — I picked out one sentence that were so long, being packed with five or six wordy dependent clauses, that it lit More...
Dec 01, 2008
Michelle
rated it: 
I am actually quite disappointed in this book. I read "A Song for Summer" and loved it and was excited to get my hands on another of Ibbotson's books.
My main complaint was that I felt like I had read the story before -- a sweeter, more compelling version with characters I found more honest and likable. I actually loved some of the secondary characters but not Ruth and Quin so much. I mean Ruth had this amazing life growing up around these amazingly smart people and living More...
My main complaint was that I felt like I had read the story before -- a sweeter, more compelling version with characters I found more honest and likable. I actually loved some of the secondary characters but not Ruth and Quin so much. I mean Ruth had this amazing life growing up around these amazingly smart people and living More...
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Dec 20, 2008
Jen
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Apr 04, 2009
Chelsea
rated it: 
Another charming read from Ibbotson. I know I keep using "charming" to describe her works, but I'm not sure how else to put it. They're fun, old fashioned, sweet, funny, and altogether delightful: they're charming.
I found myself skimming in this one a little bit, something I didn't do with any of the other Ibbotson books I've read, which I'm attributing to having read four of her books in the span of about three months. Her writing style and themes are consistent enough More...
I found myself skimming in this one a little bit, something I didn't do with any of the other Ibbotson books I've read, which I'm attributing to having read four of her books in the span of about three months. Her writing style and themes are consistent enough More...
Jan 09, 2009
Katie
rated it:
I wish I could give this a 4.5. This is another book that is now being marketed to young adults but was once published as an adult book. I really liked the story and the writing style. This one is set in Vienna during WWII. Here's the short from Amazon:
Twenty-year-old Ruth Berger is desperate. The daughter of a Jewish-Austrian professor, she was supposed to have escaped Vienna before the Nazis marched into the city. Yet the plan went completely wrong, and while her family and fiancé ar More...
Twenty-year-old Ruth Berger is desperate. The daughter of a Jewish-Austrian professor, she was supposed to have escaped Vienna before the Nazis marched into the city. Yet the plan went completely wrong, and while her family and fiancé ar More...
Jan 04, 2012
Britain
rated it:
The only thing keeping me from giving this book five stars are the more intimate personal scenes in the book. This is the most romantically mild of all the books in this series in that way (the main characters are legally married and there are no extramarital affairs). But some of the characters are not the best moral examples. If you are sensitive about this kind of material, you might want to review it before handing it to your teens. I believe it was originally written for adults and somehow
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Oct 24, 2011
Helen
rated it: 
This was the last Eva Ibbotson book I read, and it's my go-to book whenever I need something to read. I've probably read this book twenty times, and I love how I can still find something that I missed in the past. I love Ruth and how amusing and confused sometimes despite her thorough top-notch education. She's been spoiled to bits by her family, her father's colleagues, and family friends, but when she comes to London as virtually a pauper, she doesn't mind. She loves everyone and will HELP
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Aug 24, 2011
Ruth
rated it:
This only the second Ibbotsen novel I've read (In the Company of Swans the other), and I have become a fan. She knows how to tell a story even when the first chapter is purely narrative. I love her heroes and heroines (even though some reviewers don't) and settings. This story, in addition, has a wonderful set of secondary characters, so even though the hero and heroine don't have that much contact with each other over the course of the book, Ibbotsen succeeds in immersing one in the lives of th
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Jun 22, 2011
Kris
rated it: 
Wow, I really never thought I would read an Ibbotson book that I didn't like.
I mean, truly. There's some pretty glaring editing errors (at least in the edition I have), and some things that just plain don't make sense. And then there's the fact that the story is kind of... odd. I mean, it sounds really sweet and like it's going to be a good story, so maybe that's why I didn't like this book. It was a huge letdown. If I had to choose, I'd say I am most disappointed about the ran More...
I mean, truly. There's some pretty glaring editing errors (at least in the edition I have), and some things that just plain don't make sense. And then there's the fact that the story is kind of... odd. I mean, it sounds really sweet and like it's going to be a good story, so maybe that's why I didn't like this book. It was a huge letdown. If I had to choose, I'd say I am most disappointed about the ran More...
Mar 14, 2011
Donna
rated it:
I love Eva Ibbotson's writing. I adored The Secret Countess (A Countess Below Stairs). And I love the WWII era so I figured The Morning Gift would be wonderful.
I'll confess it was harder to get into than I expected. While there were the right sort of "villians" - Verena and Heini were yucky - they just weren't as "delicious" as the villains in The Secret Countess. Perhaps because there wasn't an Olive to feel so protective about. In The Secret Countess, the More...
I'll confess it was harder to get into than I expected. While there were the right sort of "villians" - Verena and Heini were yucky - they just weren't as "delicious" as the villains in The Secret Countess. Perhaps because there wasn't an Olive to feel so protective about. In The Secret Countess, the More...
Jul 12, 2010
Dlora
rated it:
I love Ibbotson's quirky characters and old-fashioned ideals. This novel was much like my very favorite book of hers, A Countess Below Stairs. Actually, the ending was more satisfying to me in A Countess but The Morning Gift had better setting. Set at the beginning of World War II, we taste the flavor of "the twilit world of the refugees, the world of menial jobs, of anxiety about permits and poverty and fear." There is Dr. Levy, the renowned heart specialist who is spending his days i
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Jan 28, 2010
Laura
rated it:
I really wanted to love this book. The writing style is enchanting, and the characters are fleshy enough to be human and likeable. This book even attempted to address (to a very minor extent) the relocation of Jews during the Holocaust.
However, the plot ended up being just too trite to enjoy. The heroine is simply too much like every other Ibbotson heroine. In fact, I found her to be pretty interchangable with Harriet from "A Company of Swans." I also found our hero to More...
However, the plot ended up being just too trite to enjoy. The heroine is simply too much like every other Ibbotson heroine. In fact, I found her to be pretty interchangable with Harriet from "A Company of Swans." I also found our hero to More...
Nov 21, 2009
Treasa
rated it:
This was not my favorite Eva Ibbotson book, but I still enjoyed it.
Ruth, a teenager who is part Jewish, is living in Vienna at the time of the Aschluss. The rest of her family manages to escape to England, but she is left behind because of various circumstances. One of her father's fellow professors, Quin, a young man and resident of England, finds her and does the only thing he can think of to get her safely out of the country: he marries her. Their marriage is one in name only, and More...
Ruth, a teenager who is part Jewish, is living in Vienna at the time of the Aschluss. The rest of her family manages to escape to England, but she is left behind because of various circumstances. One of her father's fellow professors, Quin, a young man and resident of England, finds her and does the only thing he can think of to get her safely out of the country: he marries her. Their marriage is one in name only, and More...
Jul 13, 2009
Jake
rated it:
I really liked this book, and the main character reminded me of my friend Julia from college. It's about a girl, Ruth, whose father is the dean of paleontology at a Viennese University. At the start of Hitler's reign, he is replaced with a non-Jew and his family flees to England. However, Ruth is sent ahead on a student visa and doesn't make it across the border because she has already been caught at political rallies and has been red flagged. She waits until her family leaves and then retur
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Jun 01, 2009
Sara
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Sep 07, 2011
Nicole
rated it:
The first Eva Ibbotson book I read was "A Countess Below Stairs." I was immediately hooked on her lightness and whimsy. "The Morning Gift" deals with love, Nazism, prejudice, the difficulty of refugee life, and a world on the brink of war, yet the style remains lighthearted throughout. It took me a while to become into to the characters like I did those in ACBS, but once I did (around page 150) I could barely put the book down.
The synopsis is straightforward: Ruth B More...
The synopsis is straightforward: Ruth B More...
Sep 20, 2009
carrietracy
rated it:
I feel compelled to review this mainly because the reviews towards the top at this point are so negative in tone, with some of the concern focusing around the readability of Ibbotson's writing. I do not find her writing overly flowery, rather in the books I have read I feel transported to another world, particularly when she is writing of Vienna. As for accusations that there are too many confusing references to academic things, well, yes, if you don't know who Freud is, or Beethoven or Mozart
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Jan 10, 2012
Susanne
rated it:
I had given up on Eva Ibbotson – but I'm glad to say that I was mistaken. I utterly adored this book – and laughed out loud more than once! I cannot put into words how much I liked this book but I'll try anyway.
Ruth is a sweet, charming and very charismatic heroine who attracts everyone who meets her. She’s the daughter of Professor Berger and grows up in Vienna. When the Nazis take over she’s leaving ahead of her family on a student visa, but she's sent back and the rest of the family More...
Ruth is a sweet, charming and very charismatic heroine who attracts everyone who meets her. She’s the daughter of Professor Berger and grows up in Vienna. When the Nazis take over she’s leaving ahead of her family on a student visa, but she's sent back and the rest of the family More...
Jan 10, 2009
Haley
rated it:
Loved this book! It takes place at the start of WWII. The main character, Ruth, is part Jewish and needs to escape Vienna. Her parents and fiance escaped ahead of her, but things went awry with Ruth's escape. A colleague of her father, Professor Quin Sommerville, helps her escape by marrying her so she can have a British passport. (FYI: age difference = 10 years) The plan was to get the marriage annulled right away, but even that proves more difficult than either of them thought during tho
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Oct 24, 2009
Mulber
rated it:
I always forget how much I love Eva Ibbotson until I pick up another one of her books to read. This story fed right into a recent discussion I had with one of my professors, about being "jewish" and what that means, and the very Jewish idealogy of helping people that he evidently thinks I lack. With this story of Vienna and London in the time of world war II, Eva teases out the clash between cultural ideologies, identities, and values, without feeling the need to take you to the tren
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Mar 23, 2010
Stephanie
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I really wanted to like this one. I really did. I read A Countess Below Stairs and I loved it. I expected Eva Ibbotson to live up to my expectations with The Morning Gift. Unfortunately, this book fell extremely short.
It wasn't for lack of trying. I pushed my way through this book, telling myself it would get better. But it didn't. It was a struggle for me to finish this book, and that doesn't happen very often for me.
I think a lot of the reason why I didn't like this book were the More...
It wasn't for lack of trying. I pushed my way through this book, telling myself it would get better. But it didn't. It was a struggle for me to finish this book, and that doesn't happen very often for me.
I think a lot of the reason why I didn't like this book were the More...
Jan 26, 2011
Dawn
rated it:
Because I enjoyed The Reluctant Heiress, I decided to read another Ibbotson romance, The Morning Gift. I actually liked the characters and setting more than "Heiress." But I'm getting tired of the "talented but helpless female needs rescuing by strong, stoic male" scenario. Ibbotson's writing is usually delightful, but I found this book frustrating. The most frustrating thing to me was the brief and sudden nature of the final reconciliation scene. These two characters ha
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Sep 12, 2008
Em
rated it:
I'm such a sucker for romances. This book was good, but very frustrating. I just wanted to know that everything turned out all right, and it took a long time to get to that point. I was almost tempted to cheat and read the last chapter (which I never do) but I didn't, although I might have skimmed that last few chapters. . . All in all a very fun read :)
Feb 12, 2010
Raya
rated it:
I don’t think the author set out to create some lavish, complex love story, and it definitely wasn’t. Simplicity, however, does not necessarily mean superficial or dull. In fact, there was something almost pure about the bare essentials of the connection between Ruth and Quinn.
The story still felt recycled, two people forced to marry under circumstances who end up, lo and behold, falling in love. Not that I didn’t enjoy it. I did, and I certainly enjoyed the characters. Ruth is high More...
The story still felt recycled, two people forced to marry under circumstances who end up, lo and behold, falling in love. Not that I didn’t enjoy it. I did, and I certainly enjoyed the characters. Ruth is high More...
May 15, 2009
Jenny
rated it:
Perhaps it is simply that I am in the mood to be delighted by books--any book of remotely good writing and strong character--or perhaps it is simply that the Morning Gift is truly a book to be delighted in, but I found myself smiling and giggling and railing against the characters when they did stupid things.
It's not a deep book, by any means, or one that offers many twists and turns, but I found myself caring about the brilliant and somewhat ridiculous Ruth, a Jewish girl who is fo More...
It's not a deep book, by any means, or one that offers many twists and turns, but I found myself caring about the brilliant and somewhat ridiculous Ruth, a Jewish girl who is fo More...
Aug 15, 2011
Chandra
rated it:
Such is my faith in Eva Ibbotson that I powered through this one despite the god-awful cover and embarrassingly innuendo laden title. Even the jacket flap description makes the book sound dreadful. I suffered merciless teasing from my husband and even took this sucker on a plane and read it in PUBLIC! That's how much I trust Eva Ibbotson to give me a good read! And she mostly really delivered. I know my rating may be a bit misleading, but three stars really does mean that I *liked* the book
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May 22, 2011
Josie
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jan 21, 2009
Megan
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This book alternated between being enchanting and terrible. There were adorable moments in the love story that made me childishly giddy, but near the end, the novel became a melodramatic mess. I gave it 3 stars because of the moments, but I feel slightly guilty giving it a positive review because there is so much wrong with it.
For me, there just seems to be something missing from Ibbotson's novels. There is so much potential, but they never seem to live up to it. I keep reading More...
For me, there just seems to be something missing from Ibbotson's novels. There is so much potential, but they never seem to live up to it. I keep reading More...
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May 27, 2009
Samantha
rated it:
Eva Ibboston has not lost her touch with this memorable book. A jewish proffesor's daughter is stuck in Germany. She was unfortunate that she did not escape with the rest of her family, but when an English professor that was her father's friend show up for a visit it is her perfect escape. Since she can not get a passport out of the country she marries the proffesor. When she finally gets to her family and boy friend in England she does not tell them, instead the English proffesor and the girl t
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Jan 03, 2012
Ashlyn
rated it:
I went into this expecting it to be pretty average; I don't usually go for WWI-WWII period fiction. Much to my surprise, I loved it. One of my pet peeves in romances is stupid, unrealistic, unattractive men. Quin blew me away. He was a gentleman (well, mostly), smart, and the perfect fit for Ruth. I also loved how I was able to get inside Ruth's mind. I found myself sympathizing with her almost immediately, which usually doesn't happened. Another strong point was the supporting characters. Misha
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