2024 reread:

Rereading this book for my dissertation was a true pleasure! I wholeheartedly give it five stars!
If possible, I like Lady Delacour even better, especially towards the end. She is just so witty and funny!
And all the metatextuality, I am so here for it!

Original review:

Can somebody please remind me why have we exactly discarded with didactic fiction? Oh, yes of course, under the pretense that these books are preachy, stuffy and insufferably stuck-up. Well, I beg to differ.

This novel has been a real pleasure to read, and (I know, shocker) actually made me think about how I see romantic relationships, the process of finding a partner, and about how humans should treat each other in general. Now, I do not see everything as the writer of this novel did (taking into account that a good 200 years have passed since the publication of her book), yet I still gleaned some valuable pieces of wisdom from her. And I defy any critic or actually stuck-up modern reader to tell me that because a book does not cater to our modern-day sensibilities and tastes, it is therefore bad and should not be read. As Lady Delacour, I would laugh full in their faces.

As for the story itself, I was glued to it as a soap-opera addict is glued to the screen. Very engaging and full of delightful, if not totally unexpected, twists. The character of Lady Delacour was drawn admirably and she was without a doubt the most likable and most believable out of all the characters.

And the ending... The ending was a delicious piece of metatextuality, which totally intrigued my scholarly side!

5 brilliant, blinding stars for my thorough enjoyment of this novel!