This book was a quick, delightful and utterly unique read. I devoured it all in one sitting and adored the new and creative format of the story, being told through museum wall labels. The novel follows Kitty, a woman born into wealthy American society in the early 20th century. We are taken on a journey through Kitty’s long and very eventful life, in which she lives through both wars, two dead husbands and one divorce but no children. She had an affair with Picasso and owned an original Braque. I loved the format of this novel, and I think it fit perfectly with the story and was able to tell it well. The labels were very believable, the language used was exactly the kind that you would find in a museum under a masterpiece! I adored the prose, and the easy way I was able to fully consume this novel through vignettes. My only criticisms would be that, in making the ‘labels’ so realistic, I found it very hard to understand a lot of the vocabulary and sentances as they used so much art-world and scholarly language.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about strong, indépendant women and novels that span an entire lifetime.
Thank you NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for this ARC