Fin & Lady in Around the World in 80 Books

Dec 28, 2013 Jayme Pendergraft rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2013, src-winter-2013

We start off with Fin and his parents going off in search of his older half sister, Lady, on the island of Capri. She's left her fiance at the alter and fled the the country and her stuffed shirt of a father is set on bringing her home. They do find her and bring her back to NY, but Fin does not see his sister again until his mother's funeral. At this point, his father and grandparents have also died- so much death for an 11 year old! Lady is Fin's legal guardian and she wisps him away from ever We start off with Fin and his parents going off in search of his older half sister, Lady, on the island of Capri. She's left her fiance at the alter and fled the the country and her stuffed shirt of a father is set on bringing her home. They do find her and bring her back to NY, but Fin does not see his sister again until his mother's funeral. At this point, his father and grandparents have also died- so much death for an 11 year old! Lady is Fin's legal guardian and she wisps him away from everything he knows of life (farm in Connecticut) to Greenwich Village in 1960's NY.

We know Lady is beautiful and rather promiscuous. Three men pursue her throughout the course of the book and Fin refers to them as the suitors. Lady challenges Fin to find her a husband within a year and Fin tries to find a perfect match for Lady.

In addition to matchmaking, we also learn about Fin's life in the Village. He goes to a sort of communal school where the teachers are called by their first names, no one raises their hands, there is no homework, etc.

The ending is vaguely alluded to throughout the book, but was done quite well in my opinion. You'll have to read for yourself to find out what happens.

The pros: This was a very fast read. The pacing was excellent and the story kept my attention. I enjoyed the setting of NY in the 60s and the bits of Capri thrown in. I also enjoyed the theme throughout of guardianship. I think the author wants us to ask ourselves, who is really the guardian of whom?

The cons: I feel as if we did not really come to know either Fin or Lady. In truth, I felt I got to know two of the secondary characters much better: Biffi and his mother, survivors of the Holocaust. This may have been intentional- keeping Lady at arm's length because she could not quite be captured in life. I did understand the type of person she was- so beautiful and charismatic, but still unsettled in life. And Fin. I think we may not have gotten to know Fin because during the course of the book, he did not know himself. He was trying to hard to find himself using those around him: his father, Lady, Biffi, etc.

Overall a very quick read and I'd recommend it. As I've been writing this review, I've seen that there's more to it than meets the eye and raised my rating from three stars to 4. ...more

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Nov 10, 2013 Kay Green rated it really liked it

Shelves: set-in-nyc

This was a story about an 11 year old orphaned boy who has to move in with his 23 year old free spirited sister in 1960's Greenwich village. The next 8 years or so are seen through Fin's eyes. I loved his impressions of his sister's life and the turbulence of the times. great references to music, concerts, novels, politics, and fashions. The second half of the book takes place on the island of Capri and that is also beautifully described.
Not a life-changing book, but a wonderful telling of the j ...more

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