this delightfully frank and intimate book captures the lives of four generations of women by one of them. With access to family records and personal memories, Nicholson combines the bonds of family love and understanding with an historian's objectivity. the result is moving and insightful.

When I first I read the introduction .. thought I would stop there .. I’m fairly well informed about some of the women talked about in this family .. but I persisted for various reasons ..

As it was all about the women I continued to read

as it had a social, class and female perspective of telling a history I continued to read

BUT
This is a long winded telling, still I continued to read,
This is a story of Catharsis, still I continued to read,
This is story of very privileged people, still I continued to read .. and by then I had completed the book.

I see that it could potentially validate many experiences of people living with addictions and reversal of child and adult relationships.

Then I wonder if the story told is like many a lifetime or generational story .. the story is shaped to fit the known neat stories (or meta story) of the times they belong in and therefore we are hearing a re-telling rather than an exploration of people and their lives, very privileged ones in this case.

An unflinching look at the women in Juliet Nicolson’s own family, starting with her great-great-grandmother Pepita, the Spanish dancer and closing her story with the birth of her granddaughter Imogen.

For one with an ongoing interest in Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, the first part of the story was familiar territory. The story picks up when she tells about the marriage of her parents, Nigel Nicolson (Vita and Harold’s son) and Phillipa Tennyson-d'Eyncourt and her own childhood. Her honest and compelling account of being a mother and battling with alcoholism is admirable.
The book reminded me of Margaret Forster’s [b:Hidden Lives: A Family Memoir|115432|Hidden Lives A Family Memoir|Margaret Forster|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1408926212s/115432.jpg|111158]. Also a story centered on the women in one family. It’s a story that I will savour for a long time.

The author tells of 7 generations of her family history, which emerges from a flamenco dancer born into poverty in Spain, finding its way into the ridiculously over privileged British Aristocracy.

Within it there are scandals, over indulgence, and a wonderfully mixed bag of human experiences.

What I learned is that wealth and position does not make a person immune to personal pain, but it offers more options for escape.

I enjoyed this thoroughly and related to some of the situations much more than I expected.

A little dry if you aren't interested in this family.

She seems to have inherited her family's gift for writing--echoes of Vita, in particular.

I know others loved this book - I read it on the raving recommendation of a friend - but I just found very little enjoyable about it. The author certainly has a colorful family history of privilege and disfunction, but I just couldn't bring myself to care about her story. It was honestly a bit of a chore to read. There were parts that were interesting, but not enough to make me want to pick it up, even when I was happy for time to read. I finished it only because it was a book club book.

It's pretty amazing to know much about the women in your family, four or more generations back.

An exploration of the lives and loves of a very posh family indeed. Struggles with love, struggles with drink, the pain (!) of having to pay inheritance tax (I mean, how much sympathy can you have for anyone who owns a house with 365 rooms...?)

I can't help but feel that it would have strongly benefited from a far more brutal editor.