The book description and other reviews for this book were misleading. It wasn't at all charming, delightful or romantic. It was deeply depressing actually. Looks matter and nothing else. Women are entirely to blame for a bad marriage and men are virtuous and deceived by ugly wives.The icing on the cake was the story Susanna shares with her friend Alice about a buck-tooth girl who tricked a poor guy into being saddled with her. They bemoan the fate of the poor men with bad wives.Right. I think it's time to put that myth to bed. Some men cheat on lovely, honest and decent wives who are often pretty. Even the villainous Egger's wife wasn't spared despite his "Nasty habit", bad business practices and other despicable qualities. She was ugly and plain! Even if the wife is "plain" by Susanna's eye people do honestly have a myriad of reasons for being married.This was the two women's nasty way of excusing that they are other women without showing in the novel that most "kept woman" aren't really loved by these men at all. It reminded me of two different miniseries about hookers, Band of Gold and The Secret Diary of a Caller Girl which pity the poor men whose wife won't do this or that. In this case the wife is just ugly or has interests outside of her husband.I don't fault that Susanna wasn't perfect [her petty feelings for a rival dressmaker] since Ibbotson's other heroines are ridiculously forgiving... but Susanna placed too much stock in people's appearances. For a thirty-six year old woman she ought to have learned her dead mother's remark "Pretty equals goodness" is not true. She never sees beyond that even after her 'match-making' of poor Edith and Herr Huber. He wasn't a good looking bloke but spent the majority of the book expecting to get the hot girl. Magdalena.The Magdalena/Edith storyline contradicted her argument with Huber. Magdalena wanted a sexless marriage but was sooo pretty. Now there was a marriage that would have ended in infidelity had it happened.Susanna should at least hold men to these same standards. She does tell him off but only for thinking he could have a marriage without sex. It could just be that people end up not being compatible but the poor men who have wives that don't understand them. She also picked on the women for having ugly daughters. Gasp, the worst thing a wife could do to her man.This book was filled with women hating other women. It didn't have a cozy, magical and feel goodness when the book lambasts you with appearances are all that matters in a relationship when the book is a romance. Connections with people for more than surface reasons are what sells a romance or makes you give a damn what happens to them.This read like a kiddie pool version of Nancy Mitford's "The Pursuit of Love". Only partly none of the good stuff of that book. That book was sublime and true to real romance in that most love is all in ours heads and how we ourselves feel about the other person is what most love is. There could have been a way to tell Susanna and Alice own romances without blaming women in general for not understanding poor men. This book was just all the lies women in affairs tell themselves without exposing the lies.It failed as a romance for real life love for failing to expose those as lies and it failed as a fantasy because it was too cold. This is a book written for adults unlike Ibboton's other novels but with the exception of her heroines and their love interests the other novels involved complex characters. This book might be for immature adults who don't understand how bad these sort of relationships are for everyone involved. At best it's just someone who doesn't know what they want and flitters between two women who offer something of what they want but not the complete package. Some men have a Madonna/Whore complex and want two women.Not this line from the book that had me laughing a loud. "It isn't warm, passionate women like you who make the Great Lovers of this world. It's coldhearted devils like me who are generally bored or discontented and frequently both."How charming.This is why this failed. He was bored. I was bored as a result. That was all her Field Marshall ever got across was boredom.The first few pages were the old stock unrealistic "Those flowers are so beautiful la di da".(view spoiler)[The best aspect of the book was her pain over giving up her daughter but then she experiences no growth whatsoever. She learns she's pretty and is happy.That was all that mattered. Not who she was a person. No relationship forged. (hide spoiler)]
This book is rather different from her other adult romances, it's written as a first person journal by Susanna Weber who owns a dress shop in 1911 Vienna. Susanna is older (36) and she's worked hard to build up a successful clientele. She won't take help from anyone, not even the man she loves. Susanna loves her shop and can easily manage the difficult clients as well as her anarchist shop assistant, Nini. She also loves the square and all the people who live around it. Their daily lives and intertwined as they go about their business. When a young piano prodigy moves to the square, Susanna sees he is neglected and abused and makes it her duty to befriend the boy and help his career. Susanna remains cheerful and optimistic most of the time, but sometimes she can't help but fall into a depression because she has a secret sorrow and a secret heartache. She had a child out of wedlock she gave up for adoption years ago and she's the mistress of a married man.Susanna records her daily events and secret hopes and sorrows into her journal. Then the day comes when her peaceful world is shattered and life as she knows it may change forever. She tries to remain positive and hope things will turn out all right. Help comes from an unexpected quarter and Susanna ends her year with a surprise. I wasn't crazy about this book. It's not as sad as the other adult novels but it's not as satisfying either. It's more realistic, I suppose, than the typical fairy tale plot, but I quite enjoy fairy tale romances and was disappointed in this one. I wanted to like Susanna but I felt like slapping her and telling her to grow up and move on. The secondary characters are much more appealing. They're fully fleshed people you'd expect to meet in real life and lots of fun to read about. I would recommend this book to those who like realistic stories but not to those who prefer neat and tidy happy endings.
First, I have to admit that I was predisposed to like this when Nancy Pearl handed me a copy and told me she thought I'd love it. She was right, of course.The jacket copy hints that the city is on the eve of WWI, so I was hesitant to start the book-- I wasn't in the headspace to read about war, I wanted a cozy romance. While I can definitely say this was a romance, it wasn't a usual romance, and what I was far more interested in was Susanna herself, not her lover.If you love sensous descriptions of fashion, read this. Susanna's love of her work is clear, and the way Ibbotson writes about the fabric, the draping, and the outfits all combined to suck me in. While war is coming, it is never overtly mentioned. Instead, the small tragedies and dramas of everyday life in a square in Vienna are what rule Susanna's life, as they would anyone's. I would suggest this to people who like Maeve Binchy for the neighborhood ensemble feel, and to people who were impatient for Eloisa James' next Dressmakers book for the fashion talk.
—Jessica
Set pre-World War I, in Vienna, Madensky Square tells the story of a year in the life of Susanna. Susannah is middle aged, pretty and owns a dress shop. She is also having an affair with a married man.Because this book was set around the lives of older women, who were either married or mistresses it had a different feel to Eva Ibbosten's previous books. It lacks the fairy tale ending that heroines in her books usually marry into. (Maybe this is reflecting the fact that this book is set before either of the World Wars) This meant that the ending was slightly sadder than I'm used to from Ibbosten.Also there is a moral dilemma throughout of whether or not you approve of the affairs taking place. The conclusion I came to was that, most of the men seem to be very weak minded when it comes to choosing a wife. If you want to have a happy marriage I would recommend you actually have a conversation with your wife, give yourself a day to think about it and then get married if you still think its a good idea. What's the rush?Despite the moral complications, Eva Ibbosten still manages to paint an enchanting picture of life in Madensky Square. Flawlessly handling the diary format which Is often annoying in books.
—Ela
Everything about Ibbotson's book is charming - the beautiful descriptions of pre-WWI life in Vienna, the large, but well-described cast of supporting characters, and the narrator, Susanna. Susanna 's personal story was moving, and I appreciated that Ibbotson didn't tie every loose end in a pink bow at the end - her writing was too realistic for that. I was shocked to see that the book was written in the last 20 years - this valentine to a lost era felt so true to its period that it seemed to have been written then as well.
—Karen
