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The Last Enchantments
The Last Enchantments | Charles Finch
8 posts | 4 read | 7 to read
The Last Enchantments is a powerfully moving and lyrically written novel. A young American embarks on a year at Oxford and has an impassioned affair that will change his life foreverAfter graduating from Yale, William Baker, scion of an old line patrician family, goes to work in presidential politics. But when the campaign into which he's poured his heart ends in disappointment, he decides to leave New York behind, along with the devoted, ambitious, and well-connected woman he's been in love with for the last four years.Will expects nothing more than a year off before resuming the comfortable life he's always known, but he's soon caught up in a whirlwind of unexpected friendships and romantic entanglements that threaten his safe plans. As he explores the heady social world of Oxford, he becomes fast friends with Tom, his snobbish but affable flat mate; Anil, an Indian economist with a deep love for gangster rap; Anneliese, a German historian obsessed with photography; and Timmo, whose chief ambition is to become a reality television star. What he's least prepared for is Sophie, a witty, beautiful and enigmatic woman who makes him question everything he knows about himself.For readers who made a classic of Richard Yates's A Good School, Charles Finch's The Last Enchantments is a sweeping novel about love and loss that redefines what it means to grow up as an American in the twenty-first century.
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review
ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled
The Last Enchantments | Charles Finch
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Panpan

Feckless grad students at Oxford get drunk and sleep around a lot. They drink a lot, they hook up, they break up, they sleep with someone else. 😴😴😴😴

LiteraryinPA Sounds very missable. Thanks for the heads up! 7y
DivineDiana Thank you! Agree with @LiteraryinLititz 7y
ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled @LiteraryinLititz @DivineDiana I hate to disparage any book, but all the characters were just college kids with annoying on-again / off-again relationships. Over and over. 🙄 7y
CouronneDhiver Ha! No thanks, 😬 7y
44 likes4 comments
blurb
ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled
The Last Enchantments | Charles Finch
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Did anyone like this?
Not one “pick” on Litsy.
British university setting! ✅
One reviewer likened it to Brideshead Revisited ✅
One reviewer said more like The Marriage Plot ❌
Is this any good? 😬

JazzFeathers Don't know about the story, but l live the cover 😄 7y
43 likes1 comment
quote
Chey12
The Last Enchantments | Charles Finch
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"The Thames was beautiful, dark, and swift beneath the billion yellow and white lights of the city"

A photo I took off the London Eye in 2015.-- Chey12

2 likes1 stack add
review
LitHousewife
The Last Enchantments | Charles Finch
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Panpan

This applies both to my book club's reading selection for this month and the characters in this book in general. If this was the last enchantment, I'm sad. Luke Daniels, however, is a very entertaining narrator. He redeemed the experience in that I've discovered another narrator to love.

acg This book is like the epitome of pretty rich white people with problems trope 9y
LitHousewife Exactly, @seekingthespheres, thank you. 9y
11 likes2 comments
blurb
LitHousewife
The Last Enchantments | Charles Finch
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Finally over the halfway mark. There was an interesting turn of events, but I pretty much think most of the male characters, especially Will, are jack*asses. Luke Daniels is still the only reason I'm not bailing.

6 likes1 stack add
blurb
LitHousewife
The Last Enchantments | Charles Finch

Listening to the beginning of disc 4 on the way home from dropping the kids off at riding lessons. I muttered, "Lying *sshole," to the main character as I turned off the car. Not a good sign. 5.8ish discs left. Thankfully Luke Daniels is a good narrator. He's the only thing going for this book.

Irisheyz77 Love Luke Daniels! 9y
7 likes1 comment
blurb
LitHousewife
The Last Enchantments | Charles Finch
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I started this before my vacation because my April meeting will sneak up on me. This is my first Luke Daniels listen and I enjoyed what he did with the Fleet tour guide so far. The story itself? I fear it will bore me 1.5 discs in.

missfarin Yeah, this was my least favorite of this author's books. His historical fiction mystery series is much better. 9y
LitHousewife There could be worse fates, but I was hoping for better. It's a good come down from Did You Ever Have a Family. @missfarin 9y
6 likes1 stack add2 comments
blurb
LitHousewife
The Last Enchantments | Charles Finch
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This is my April book club selection. Have you read it? Did You Ever Have a Family is going to be hard to beat.

acg I read it and didn't like it 😕 Hopefully it's not too much of a let down for you! 9y
LitHousewife Well, it will be hard to beat the last book either way. Oh, well. They can't all be winners. Sometimes the books we don't like make for the best conversations. 9y
missfarin I am a fan of Charles Finch, but this was my least favorite of his books. 😞 9y
LitHousewife Boo!!!!! Probably not the best place to start with him then. Shoot. I wonder if I recommended that we read this book? Better practice ducking. 9y
4 likes4 comments