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The Art of Devotion Samantha BruceBenjamin 9781439153949 Books

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The Art of Devotion Samantha BruceBenjamin 9781439153949 Books

Confusing and complicated read. As a die hard book worm, I was disappointed and don't plan on reading this book again.


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The Art of Devotion Samantha BruceBenjamin 9781439153949 Books Reviews

The first thing I noticed about The Art of Devotion was the beauty of the text -- the language is so lyrical. Other reviewers have mentioned how the writing is almost poetic. It certainly flows so well.

Just as I was adjusting to the language, I was drawn to the glamourous and rarified circles that the characters lived in. Much like I loved reading about the characters that F. Scott Fitzgerald would come up with (think Great Gatsby, short stories with titles like A Diamond as Big as the Ritz!), I enjoyed Bruce-Benjamin's references to the Metropolitan Club, the mysterious island in the Mediterranean and to great wealth.

The Art of Deception opens with a wedding reception at the exclusive Metropolitan Club in New York City. I'd been curious about this building ever since I'd seen it on the Upper East Side years ago, so this detail caught my attention right away. The novel tells us about the lives of privileged British nationals living in Europe from 1919 until 1940. During this time of great wealth, and the novel is vaguely reminiscent of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in that the main characters of The Art of Deception are privileged and insulated by their wealth. Even the quote above reminds me of Nick's opening words in The Great Gatsby.

The novel is told by four different women

Adora - daughter of Sophia, sister to Sebastian, wife to Oliver. Adora is British by nationality but she's grown up on an unidentified island in the Mediterranean. Graced with breathtaking and unforgettable beauty and great wealth, Adora opts for an unconventional life on her island. One source of sadness is that she and Oliver cannot have children. Adora takes a deep liking to Genevieve and showers her with love and support.

Genevieve - daughter of Miriam and Oliver's best friend, James. Genevieve had been drawn to the beauty, glamor and charm of Adora and Oliver ever since she was a child. Genevieve and her family spend their summers with Adora and Oliver on their island. Genevieve's close relationship with Adora shapes a large part of her identity as a young woman.

Miriam - mother of Genevieve and wife to James. The novel opens with Miriam revealing herself as the protective and devoted mother. Though Miriam spent her summers on the island, it is clear that she had felt distanced from Adora and Oliver. While James and Genevieve are devoted to Adora and Oliver, Miriam does not feel part of their group but instead harbors some resentment towards them.

Sophie - mother of Adora and Sebastian. Extremely wealthy, beautiful, well connected and brilliant, Sophie and her husband had enjoyed the glamour, culture and stimulation of diplomatic circles. Sophie decides to relocate the family to the island in the Mediterranean for her children's sake. One of the book's strengths comes from the way that Samantha Bruce-Benjamin captures so the complicated and uneasy relationship between Sophie and Adora.

As I got drawn in by the language, the characters and their glamorous lives, the author slowly reveals all sorts of hidden truths and twists in the novel. As I was reading these revelations about the characters and the events in their lives, I was struck by how well Samantha Bruce-Benjamin had planned each clue and how each part built on the next. The Art of Devotion is an unusual and unexpected read.

ISBN-10 1439153949 - Paperback $15.00
Publisher Gallery; Original edition (June 8, 2010), 378 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.
The Art of Devotion by Samantha Bruce-Benjamin is haunting... The prose is beautifully rendered on the page, like a love letter written to the reader... The women who fill the pages of The Art of Devotion struggle for your empathy as each reveals their hidden fears, betrayals, hopes and obsessions... and by the end of the story, their story, we are swept up into their lives.

The novel itself is unique in that the story is told from four points of view. Sophie, Adora, Miranda and Genevieve are the three generations of women that tell their story, unfolding it by alternating passages, almost like pages in a diary. At first I thought that having the four alternating narrators was just to establish the beginning of the story and the voices of the different women, but as the story continued that way, I found it an interesting way to read a story. Instead of having to guess the motivations of one of the other women involved in a particular circumstance, I was able to peek into their thoughts soon enough when it was their turn to "speak". The characters are fleshed out and well developed, and the empathy you will start to feel for them individually is the result of their lives coming to life on the page. Samantha Bruce-Benjamin does a wonderful job creating such strong believable women. And their lives are so entangled with one another too! There is more than one twist and turn to their stories. Secret liaisons and relationships are slowly revealed over the course of the novel, along with betrayals, that will having you devouring the pages for more!

The setting for the novel is the beautiful Mediterranean, and the story has that carefree feeling to it. We are allowed to enjoy the women and not be concerned with the mundane of day-to-day living. The interactions between Sophie, Adora, Miranda and Genevieve are steeped in deep emotion, spanning 20 years of their lives, from young girls (in the case of Adora, Miranda and eventually Genevieve) to mature women, and the results are haunting. Even after finishing the book I am still thinking about those women and the choices they made. Not to give too much away, but the prologue meant so much more to me after I finished the book, and I would recommend going back and reading it again after you finish too!

I would definitely recommend The Art of Devotion by Samantha Bruce-Benjamin! For it's beautiful writing, memorable characters and its intriguing story. And those 4 women were so interesting to get to know!
Beautifully written! I enjoyed the experience.
Confusing and complicated read. As a die hard book worm, I was disappointed and don't plan on reading this book again.