I wrote a blog entry about this book but it’s pretty sketchy because as I was reading it for the second time I realized I hadn’t even finished it the first time. As far as I can figure, I fell asleep and lost my placed, and finished a bit more and decided to wait. Then I thought I’d actually finished and wrote what I was capable of. LOL!

Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics
and the Invention of Self
by Andrea Wulf 
2022: 868 pages 
read by Julie Teal: 15h 1m
Rating: 9.5 / 18th century European history 
(Both read and listened)

But because it’s for a reading group I did intend to read it a 2nd time. So when I picked it up a few days ago and really got into it again I discovered, after awhile, that some of this was new! I checked the highlights in the back of the Kindle and sure enough – there were several chapters without a single highlight. That means something to me – LOL!

Okay -it’s a good book. I’m not going to give it a 10 because it’s not THAT good but it’s better than I thought it was. The latter chapters get better and better – especially the last Part of the Epilogue.

The characters are drawn well enough they almost feel like family. The settings could be better handled. I was more interested in the philosophies and the poetry than I was in the gossipy antics of the Set but some of that was kind of fun. It was the ending that connected the pieces for me.