Buddy Read for the Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict

[Amy]

I am excited to share this read with all of you guys who are able to join us. I read a heck of a lot of Women in Fiction, and a lot of authors that pick out lesser known women in history who have been obscured and raise them. Marie Benedict and Kate Quinn both do that, as well as a host of other authors.

Marie Benedict is my author of the year, and I have read all of her works that I hadn't. I am in the last 30 minutes of the audio of Lady Clementine, the formidable wife of Winston Churchill, who before a few weeks ago, I had known nothing about. I am similarly looking at Hedy Lamar, as well as to accomplish three things. To finish my Marie Benedict Challenge, (well the Mitford Papers comes out in 2023), to read something off my TBR, and to lovingly get rid of a book I have owned for years, thus ever so slightly reducing the hallway pile that my husband detests.

I am finishing up the Last Dress in Paris, which I am going to go ahead and call Meh. I am in quite the book mood lately, and perhaps I cannot currently be trusted. But when I finish, which I pray will be a day or two, this will be my next one to start. Where is everyone else with why they picked it up, what expectations they may have, and when they hope to begin, or anything else folks want to share. So looking forward to enjoying this with you.

And HayJay if you are reading this, I do have a new suggestion or two, that we might consider. I am on the hunt for a "goodie." If you read my general feed post, you will see that I am already putting out feelers and am open to suggestions. Might you read this one with us? And what did you think of LD in P? Has anyone else read that or the Lost Summers of Newport? I welcome feedback for what is not a reading slump, but a bit of a bored plateau in need of a love spark.

Anyway - onto now, or hopefully soon, the Only Woman in the Room!

[Booknblues]

I'm in. I can start it today as I have just finished the book I was reading.

[Amy]

I think we’re gonna be a good, I mean great group!

[Joanne]

I will try to snag a copy and join you

ETA: Just checked my library-it is out until 8/22-put a hold on it incase it come ins earlier

[Hayjay315]

Amy wrote: "I am excited to share this read with all of you guys who are able to join us. I read a heck of a lot of Women in Fiction, and a lot of authors that pick out lesser known women in history who have b..."

Really glad to see you are flying through Only Woman in the Room and gave Lady Clementine 4 stars! When I read Only Woman back in 2019 it was a 5 star read for me so will look forward to your review! Lady Clementine received 4 stars from me when I read it in 2020. I did receive your message and will definitely respond within the next two days. I had to rush to get my History Lane book done in time.

[Booknblues]

I'm enjoying it so far. At the beginning , she was so immature that I wondered how she could be such a great brain.

I'm about 40% in and she is beginning to show some maturity.

[Booknblues]

I've finished and still formulating my thoughts on this. I'm wavering between 3 and 4 stars on it.

[Amy]

Sane. Funny I haven’t written my review yet either and I’m so curious to see what we both will think. We have been so into this year.

[Booknblues]

I was wondering, since you have read other books by her, does she always write in the 1st person?

[Amy]

Always I think

[Robin P]

I will probably read this one this month.

[Booknblues]

Robin P wrote: "I will probably read this one this month."

We will be looking forward to your reaction.

[Booknblues]

Here is my review:

Hedy Lamar was an amazing woman, an actress who also made an incredible scientific invention, which was meant to help the allies. In Marie Benedict's novel The Only Woman in the Room we are given the story of Lamar's life starting with when she was a young Austrian actress, Hedy Kiesler.

Her story is told in first person, which sometimes is effective, but I felt that Benedict did not provide enough depth of character and that Lamar often came off shallow, whiny and vain. My central problem with the book, is that I wanted more insight and character and it fell a bit short for me.

[Amy]

Spoiler Alerts Ahead - the girl who never writes synopses is giving away the whole store. Alert, Alert!

I am having a very hard time writing a review for this one. I gather my friend Fran is having an equally difficult time. I wonder if we felt the same kinds of positives and reservations.

For one, I really enjoyed the first half of the book so much more. I mean the premise is incredible, even more incredible that it was real. A theater actress who was having some onstage acclaim in Austria, as well as had starred in an erotic film, catches the eye of a high up Austrian Soldier named The Death Merchant. Once he desires her, she and her family rightly see that there is no choice on the matter. The father hopes she can have some bit of feeling for him, because there is no way any of them live if she does anything but say yes to the marriage and every single one of his whims, including giving up the stage and becoming his prisoner. And of course she is Jewish as well, and is watching her people in increasing danger, most especially her beloved parents.

Her managing to escape that situation was exciting and almost implausible. But we know that she did. That part could not have been more engaging. But here's the thing. Do we blame the book and the story for being a little less exciting because it spoke the truth rather than made up something that would have been more thrilling? Hedy escapes to America, and resumes her career as an actress in Hollywood, becoming Hedy Lamarr. We suffer through all her guilt over what she couldn't have stopped, but there would have been no way she could have ever done anything to help, being a powerless victim herself. Its almost implausible that she escaped.

Yet, with her background in science, she collaborates with a pianist to help make a formula and prototype for better missiles, given what she overheard about what doesn't work from her prior life. She knew their prototype would foreshorten the war. So she develops this prototype and brings it to the War Office. And they brush her off and don't use her technology. They refuse to, because her being a pretty face, a woman, an actress, collaborating with a piano player, well they just wouldn't have it. That's sad. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if they used the technology, rather than get caught up in the social convention of the time. So she doesn't shorten the war, and to be honest, that would have been a better story. But eventually the technology is used and is pervasive today for things like cell phones and microwaves and the like. Anything with frequencies. Yes, her using her experience to become a war heroine would have been more exciting, but it simply wasn't true.

I became a little sick of hearing how her beauty saved her life and made her famous but put her at such a disadvantage. I didn't love the writing. Although I have in plenty of her other books. I didn't dislike it, nor did I love it. Another friend of ours rated it five stars, and there was something about that, that made sense to me. At the same time, I found myself veering between three and four. I just couldn't tell how to rate it. The premise and escape - well that was a five star situation.. But on the whole? I couldn't get there. Friends who have read it, pipe in! What did you think?

[Booknblues]

I know that Marie Benedict can be a better writer, by things you have said, Amy. This is my first experience with her.

For me, it is an exciting story, but somehow in the telling it didn't feel that exciting.

I thought perhaps that telling it in first person, might have been some of the problem. Just how many times does one need to hear how beautiful somebody is or how guilty they feel because they know a secret?

I would have liked to have felt this a bit more.

[Amy]

I agreed with you that the characters were just not that depthful and more shallow. Do you know I think her books have a hit or miss quality. The other Einstein was fantastic, and the personal librarian which she cowrote, may be in my top 10 for life. I also thought her Hidden genius was excellent. But Carnegie’s Maid did not live up. I thought Navy Clementine was great, but I had wondered if I would have felt the same thing had it not been narrated to me with this wonderful woman’s English voice. I’m trying to remember if there was another of hers, oh the mystery of Miss Christie. No I liked that one, but again I wouldn’t say it added up to the height of some of the others. And I liked it primarily because I have been in that Agatha Christie mood with all the different varying books about her disappearance. I do think she’s variable as an author. I’d love to hear what others think once they finished.

[Joanne]

Well this makes my mind up to skip it-thanks for the push ;)

[Joanne]

BnB-I read The Personal Librarian and gave it 4 stars, think you might like it more than this one