Ethan Frome in Never too Late to Read Classics

May 26, 2011 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics, short-stories-novellas, american-classics

One of those books I read when I was young, but always thought I should read again. It was a quick read with an unexpected ending and held my attention to the end. Sometimes life makes us pay too high a price...I probably understand that better now than I would have in my 20s.

Like so many of Wharton's characters, Ethan Frome is searching for his place in the world and hoping for a happiness that is always just out of his reach. I suppose our sympathies ought to lie, to some extent, with Zenobia ...more

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Jul 13, 2022 Carey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

This was my first of Edith Wharton's works, but it will certainly not be my last! I love a sad story and this one is a SAD story filled with downtrodden despair, forbidden feelings, and inescapable desire. I can only imagine how absolutely scandalous this must have been during its original release! I was pleasantly surprised at how much tension was built up in this short novel. I found myself unable to put this book down and ended up finishing it within just a couple of hours! Edith Wharton's wr ...more

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Sep 30, 2017 Sarah rated it really liked it

I read this in highschool and hated it. I just re-read it because another novel I read referred to it. I totally enjoyed it this time - though enjoying another's misery is probably not an apt description. One thing I never thought of before is how in her other books, the female leads are always angling for that financially proper marriage (think Henry James too), and these gals often pay dearly for marrying the "wrong" guy. This is the about the only novel from that era I can thin kof where the ...more

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Jul 26, 2013 Christine rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics, historical-fiction, american-literature, read-in-2015, z-100-to-199-pages

This was a sweet, frustrating and sad little book. I will never dismiss a short story again. It was a satisfying read and I wouldn't have wanted to miss it. ...more

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