The Chaperone

The Chaperone  by  Laura Moriarty

The Chaperone was one of those books that you hope will have hidden depths as you delve in, but midway through you kind of give up on it.  From about the halfway mark, I decided to just enjoy the book as a ‘cute story’ and stop hoping the author would give me more when it came to the main character.  The story line gave her so much potential, but unfortunately she fell flat.  I think the author was trying to reflect the time period, with its sense of propriety and decorum. But because we as readers are privy to the innermost thoughts of the characters, couldn’t we see the hidden passion behind her?

The book follows the life of a woman, Cora, and begins with her chaperoning a young dancer, real-life 20’s actress Louise Brooks, as she attends a dance school in New York City. Some of the critiques of the book I read were disappointed that it wasn’t more about Louise Brooks. But given that the title is called The Chaperone, I wasn’t surprised or disappointed that was whom the majority of the story focused on. Another criticism was how the author was slow at some points, whilst whizzing through others. Yes, she did do that. But it wasn’t too distracting. I didn’t mind the book trailing on and on and not ending till Cora ended. I always am left wondering what happened to my characters after the novel ends, and this book saw them all till death, so I liked that, haha.

The novel tackles some huge topics, like child molestation, homosexuality (and how it was perceived in the 1900’s), adoption, abandonment, racism, and issues that were bigger topics during the time period, like birth control and prohibition. Yet the author manages to throw all that in, and still come out with a fairly shallow novel with shallow characters. I’m not sure how she did it. But she did.

I give this book 2.5 maybe 3 stars, if I’m reaching. It’s not a must-read for me, but if you’re bored and it’s right in front of you, it’s a pleasant distraction.