Gone with the Wind and Philipa Gregory's Wideacre (SP?)

[aurora]

ETA - there are general spoilers below for both books.






OK, so I'm 80% done with Gone with the Wind now (first time reading it and I haven't seen the movie, though of course I had a general sense of what it was about) and I've been struck with the similarities to Philipa Gregory's Wideacre series.  Did anybody else notice that?  Both have really strong, not necessarily scrupulous, female leads that start as aristocrats and go through serious poverty.  Both female leads are completely obsessed with making money.  Both have extremely strong ties to the land on which they grew up.  Both marry men they're not really in love with and have (at least sort of) toxic relationships with men they do love.  Did Philipa steal the plot line from Margaret Mitchell?

[secretlyevil]

Is WildAcre her incestuous series? Or am I thinking of something else? But if it as you described, considering GWTW was written first...

[aurora]

Apr 11, 2013 11:02:12 GMT -5 secretlyevil said:

Is WildAcre her incestuous series? Or am I thinking of something else? But if it as you described, considering GWTW was written first...

Yes, Wideacre has a fair amount of incest and is a trilogy (even though I guess I was talking about it as if it were a single book).  Since GWTW was written first I am wondering if Philipa Gregory was (consciously or subconsciously) building on it.

[secretlyevil]

I read that series but I don't remember much about it so I can't really do a good compare and contrast. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time remembering details. I guess that means I have to re-read.

[IIOY]

I have nothing substantive to add here except that I had to read Wideacre for book club and it was possibly one of the worst books I have ever read.

ETA: and with this, I have now named three different books in three different threads over the past two days that I thought were horrid. Apparently I prefer to discuss the books I don't like rather than the ones I like. LOL

[aurora]

Apr 14, 2013 12:06:55 GMT -5 IIOY said:

I have nothing substantive to add here except that I had to read Wideacre for book club and it was possibly one of the worst books I have ever read.

ETA: and with this, I have now named three different books in three different threads over the past two days that I thought were horrid. Apparently I prefer to discuss the books I don't like rather than the ones I like. LOL

Yeah, Wideacre made me really mad, but I still went on to finish the series.  I think it was partly because the heroine had so few redeeming qualities.  Also, as evidenced by the other thread, I have trouble quitting books.  And book series, apparently.

It's fun to talk about books we hate, too!