Daisy Miller in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Nov 16, 2009 jess rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, audiobook-d, fiction

Okay I picked this up because, with only three discs, it was the shortest audiobook I could find at the library and I wanted something brief for a shortened week of commuting. I had never read Daisy Miller, not heard much about it, and I hardly feel much like discussing it now that it's over. It bored the crap out of my kid, which goes to show that none of us have any appreciation for classic literature these days. Reading this felt a lot like being back in high school english class. The languag Okay I picked this up because, with only three discs, it was the shortest audiobook I could find at the library and I wanted something brief for a shortened week of commuting. I had never read Daisy Miller, not heard much about it, and I hardly feel much like discussing it now that it's over. It bored the crap out of my kid, which goes to show that none of us have any appreciation for classic literature these days. Reading this felt a lot like being back in high school english class. The language is simple, so the book is really accessible. This was perfect for an audiobook on my commute. It's easy to get lost in fancy sentence structure when you're dodging semi-trucks on a major interstate in the rain. Daisy Miller is an American tourist, traveling around Europe with her mother and young brother. She is acquainted with several Americans also living in Europe, but her flirtatious manner toward men is totally unbecoming to her social station and reveals her as a terribly uninformed, ignorant American flirt. She is young and having a good time and behaves irreverently toward the more conservative social conventions. The major plot conflicts arise from tension between new money and old, Europe and America, & women and men. Daisy Miller is something of a spitfire in a totally tedious and ignorant sort of way, defying convention, refusing to cowtow to elitism and perception, and rejecting the idea that she should "behave" in a "ladylike manner," so maybe we could like her for her resilient and resistant spirit, like a zygotic feminist. I mean, usually I do side with that kind of girl. But Daisy Miller is simpering, manipulative and she whines so much, it was absolutely impossible for me to feel sympathy for her or her bad social graces or her untimely death. She was so very unlikable, as were all of the characters, and at the end of the book I wasn't left with any sort of grand allegorical insght. I was just thinking, "GOD I would kill myself if I had to interact with people like that."
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Oct 23, 2007 Willa rated it it was ok

This was a very quick little read... Only 83 pages, so more of a novella... It was just okay... Without time for real character development, I look for a really entertaining/funny/exciting/scary/shocking/etc. story, and this just wasn't it... I guess its theme was involving women and how their acceptable behavior in public was on the verge of changing... But the ending didn't satisfy me with that being the case... ...more

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Mar 26, 2008 Nari rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, 2008, high-society

This was a very quick, yet interesting take on social hierarchies. Daisy Miller is a young flirt, a predecessor to Nabakov's Lolita. Told through the eyes of an older gentlemen, this story is loaded with social snobbery and prejudice from the conservative upper class to the flamboyant middle class that defines Daisy Miller. ...more

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