2022 - Discussion Thread Q2 - The Foundling

Here's my super duper belated contribution to this thread, I actually finished this over a month ago now but never got around to writing up my thoughts. 

I was going to read this, but then it popped up in my Borrowbox so I decided to try that instead. I do tend to struggle with books written a long time ago (it's always the category I struggle the most with in the challenge), there are nuances in the language that make it difficult for me that I thought might work better on audio. I do think that helped, and both narrators that I had were very good with capturing the mood of 1700s London. That being said, one of them had a very high-pitched voice for one of the male characters, which bugged me to no end - luckily he doesn't speak very much!

Anyway, onto the story. I liked the historical element of London, "walking" around Fleet Street and the Billingsgate area, places which are familiar to me. I also enjoyed learning more about the foundling hospital (I don't consider this a spoiler as, well, what else would you expect given the title) and the process that women had to go through if they found themselves in the unfortunate circumstance of having to give up a baby. It inspired me to read more about the hospital and how the children were housed / brought up.

Unfortunately, that's where the book stopped working for me. I was intrigued from the blurb as to how the situation arose whereby Bess found that her daughter had been reclaimed by someone apparently taking on her identity, and indeed (apart from wanting to join in with this discussion) that was one of the reasons that spurred me to keep on reading. But there were a loooot of words in this one, and I thought not enough story to justify needing so many. I had listened to over an hour before the story even moved beyond what was already on the blurb, and there were several places where I was really willing it to get a move on. 

Once we moved into the second section with Alexandra though, and our heroines meet, I thought things did pick up slightly and the book does very well with creating new questions in my mind that I was keen to get answers to. It really would have helped if I had liked one of the main ladies: Alexandra felt like she was written to be cold/unlikeable, and Bess was just so bloody illogical in parts! 

I was pleased to find towards the end that the author did try to resolve most of the lingering questions, particularly relating to how Clara came into Alexandra's care / how Alexandra knew that Daniel had a child to begin with, but unfortunately again the ending didn't work for me as it was just so illogical! Alexandra seemed to have had a brain transplant based on how she behaved in the last chapter, and honestly I just could not agree with Bess' decision to rip Clara away from the Bloomsbury life into something so much less stable, and still justify "wanting the best for her daughter". 

All in all I gave this one 3*, because I found it educational in parts and I did enjoy the sections that covered London's history. The writing style was very suited to this too, and overall the story was pretty good, I would have given a higher score had it been less long-winded. 

I also listened to this one a while ago and didn't realise this thread had been opened since.