A Room with a View

Well, I finished my first book! How exciting is that? After a year of thinking to myself, "Shoot, I still haven't read a book on my list!" and one close call where I thought I had (kicking myself for not actually including "Ethan Frome" on the list), I have officially read one of the books! And it was "A Room with a View" by EM Forster.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

I liked this book a lot overall... there were some passages that made me catch my breath for sure, and I really enjoyed the way Forster wrote with acknowledgements to the reader. I thought it was really funny that way. However, one of the biggest issues I had with the book was that the relationship between Lucy and George wasn't developed much at all. She faints into his arms, he throws some pictures in the river, she stands in front of some violets, he kisses her... it's love. There is no explanation for why they belong together past that. So I was frustrated with it, because it seemed to be mostly that he was sort of sensitive and misunderstood and she was pretty and a little more lively than most girls her age.
Another thing that bothered me was that the end seemed to have a very deus ex machina-type element to it. George says a speech, and she suddenly realizes she cannot marry Cecil, and then through a series of random events including George's father kissing her, she decides to forsake convention and marry George and live happily ever after.
Um, what?
It all happens in the matter of a few pages. It was abrupt, and I felt like it was Forster's way of cheating the more likely ending. Which I would have been fine with, if he had developed it more. And given a better explanation than one small paragraph about how George's father had his mother (still very confused about that... by not baptizing George, he had killed her in the "sight of God"? Hmm...)

HOWEVER, I still managed to love the book and underlined/dogeared many passages that I thought seemed more like poetry than prose. All in all, I would recommend this book, as long as I first warned the reader that it seems a little contrived at some points.