Review: Scarlett

Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I finished this late last night and I'm still not 100% sure on my feelings about it. I guess the best that I can say was that it was okay. I wasn't overly wowed with anything, but I don't feel a complete resounding hatred toward the author for butchering two of my favorite literary characters. I definitely cannot say that I'm happy with Ms. Ripley's take on Scarlett or Rhett either. They both were just missing that spark that made Gone With the Wind the book that it was, but I don't think that ANYONE other than Margaret Mitchell is capable of writing those two properly.

If I try to look at Scarlett as a separate entity from Gone with the Wind it comes just comes across as middle of the road fan fiction. And let's face it, that is pretty much what it was. I was happy to see Scarlett finally grow into a woman and a mother, but it was also sad for me to see her lose that stubborn drive to always get what she wants. The only thing I ever really saw from her in Scarlett was her running. She runs from Atlanta, then Charleston, then Savannah, then Ireland. She sets goals , and when they didn't happen, she accepts defeat. Scarlett does not accept defeat, she may lick her wounds for a bit, but she always jumps back in. She fights and will do it dirty if necessary. I missed that in her. As for Rhett. Well, I won't even go into that one.

Anyway, back to the point. By the end of this, I definitely realized that I needed to forget that this is a sequel. It isn't a sequel, in my opinion. There really can't be a sequel that isn't written by Margaret Mitchell. However, it was interesting to read someone else's opinion to how their love story ends up. It was a little cheesy, and definitely not how I would have ever ended things for Rhett and Scarlett, but it was okay entertainment.



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