Very unusual read, there was a lot of repetition so it really drug the story out. I think it could have been told in less time and probably would have kept my interest better. But, it was very interesting ( )

I picked this biography up last year, having read a couple of Nancy Mitford’s enjoyable and sharply written biographies of historical figures (Madame de Pompadour and The Sun King), but found I couldn’t get into it - perhaps because I didn’t know enough at that point about the rest of this extraordinary family. Then this year I read Nancy’s two most famous novels, the semi-autobiographical The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, followed by Jessica (Decca) Mitford’s autobiography Hons and Rebels - each of which I throughly enjoyed. Drawn in, I finally turned back to Mary Lovell’s biography to find out more. Disappointingly, while I found it fascinating and packed with absorbing detail, I agree with a number of earlier reviewers that it seemed strangely biased against ‘red sheep’ and runaway communist and risk-taker Decca - who, after all, seems to have done a great deal of good in her life through her energy and commitment to civil rights causes and lift-the-lid-style ‘muck-raking’. At the same time it was relatively uncritical, indeed almost fawning, towards Unity and especially Diana, the two Hitler-loving sisters whose unrepentant behaviour is frequently rationalised and downplayed throughout. While I learned much more about ‘Muv’ than I had previously understood, there was little of note about Debo, even less about Pam, and not enough about Nancy, beyond a fairly one-note portrayal as a scathing, even bitchy wit who was unlucky in love. I would like to have understood ‘Farve’ in more depth, too. All in all a compelling but lopsided portrait of one of last century’s most famous families. ( )

A joint biography of the Mitford sisters and their family. Eminently readable, and it's almost incredible to think about how broad a swath this group of people cut across Europe and America through much of the twentieth century. ( )

best book I,ve read this year ( )

Una famiglia straordinaria davvero, o meglio: forse una famiglia come tante ma in cui alcune personalità e gli eventi storici hanno giocato un ruolo incredibile.
Straordinario ho trovato pure il fatto che di queste donne io non avessi mai sentito parlare prima e ancora non mi capacito di come persone del tutto ordinarie possano, complici alcuni eventi, essersi spinte così lontano.