Muriel Spark

The girls of slender means

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Irene Alegre

I think I just wasn't in the mood for this one. At all. I found it senseless. And not funny, even when it was intended. And a bi chaotic as well. Probably the Spanish translation didn't help either.

It was well written but it was missing something. Or maybe I missed something. 

God only knows.

This is London 1945, when all nice people are poor. Muriel Spark sets us down among the girls of good family but slender means as they fight it out, from their Kensington hostel to the last clothing coupon until this charmingly light-hearted period in their lives descends into horror and tragedy.

The Girls of Slender Means

Trever

I didn't like this one as much as  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, but if you liked that one this one's pretty good too. There's less experimentation and the characters feel a little less well-drawn, but it's still funny and Sparkian (new word, I'm coining it).

Sara Sunshine

Will Vunderink

Andrew John Kinney

Shivani Charu

Rebecca Raven

Jordan Peet

'Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions' In the May of Teck Club - a London hostel 'three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit' - the young lady residents do their best to act as if the war never happened. They practice elocution, and jostle one another over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown. But behind the girls' giddy literary and amorous peregrinations they hide some tragically painful secrets and wounds. 'Reading the novel as a young woman was a random gift; rereading it today is to encounter the rarest of fiction and to appreciate the early and enduring genius of Muriel Spark.' Carol Shields, Guardian 'What makes her comedy serious is the sense of darker forces lurking beneath the amusing contradictions and bafflements of everyday life . . . unsettling and exhilarating.' William Boyd, Telegraph 'Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards.' John Updike, New Yorker

The girls of slender means

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