I seem to be the outlier here but this book, which I was initially excited to read, ended up falling a little flat for me. The first half or so of the book was really good, especially the chapters about Lorena Hickok's (Hick's) childhood and her background – that portion read like a riveting biography that I couldn't seem to put down. I found myself wanting to know more about Hick's personal story in terms of her family and the other people she had met during her brief stint with the circus. I was also fascinated by her perspective on some of the historical events and people she had covered as a journalist (i.e. the section on Lindbergh was quite interesting). As a result, I was able to fly through this first portion of the book pretty quickly. Unfortunately though, once the second half of the book transitioned into Hick's relationship with the Roosevelts (Franklin and his wife Eleanor) and what her life was like living with them in the White House, the story really slowed down for me. While I did feel like a fly on the wall getting the "inside scoop" on some of the things that went on behind closed doors and some of Hick's observations about the Roosevelts as well as the people around them were truly interesting, there were times when I felt that the details were a bit too repetitive and after awhile, I found my attention waning. A few times when I got distracted and later re-focused back on the story, I realized that I had inadvertently skipped reading entire paragraphs in certain sections, yet it didn't feel like I had missed anything so I didn't go back to re-read those paragraphs – usually not a good sign. Perhaps I had problems connecting with the second half of the story because it lacked emotional depth to me – it felt almost as though the narrator (Hick) was recounting her relationship with Eleanor as a detached third party rather than an intimate companion and friend. In comparisons, during the first portion of the story when Hick talked about her difficult childhood and her life prior to meeting the Roosevelts, it felt more personal and poignant – Hick's personality came alive for me during those chapters and I felt every emotion she felt…but that personality and emotion fizzled in the latter half of the story and I was left with a sense that something was lacking. Perhaps I had the wrong expectations going into this book – from reading the summary, I thought I was going to get an emotionally rich, personalized (albeit fictional) story about Hick's relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt and the struggles they endure in maintaining this "open secret" during the Roosevelt era. While there WAS some of this in the second half of the story, I felt that most of Hick's personal story was overshadowed by that of the Roosevelts – the second half read more like a run-of-the-mill biography of Eleanor Roosevelt rather than an impassioned recounting of a love affair from Hick's perspective.
This book didn't quite work out for me but I think it was more of an issue with me not connecting to the story rather than problems with the book itself. The version I read was an uncorrected ARC and while the writing was very good, there wasn't much information in terms of Author's Note and historical context, both of which are things I usually look for when reading historical fiction, and in this case, I wasn't engaged enough in the story to want to spend time looking up the historical details on my own so that was an issue for me as well. This one has gotten many glowing reviews though so I would encourage those interested to check those out for a more balanced perspective.
Received ARC from Random House via NetGalley
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