Disappointed....
The Luncheon of the Boating Party is my all-time favorite painting by my favorite artist, Renoir. So you can imagine my excitement when I came across this book not only bearing the same name and scene on the cover, but one that promised to take on the task of creating the characters depicted in the scene and a storyline go with it. If you can comprehend my excitement in beginning this novel, you can surely understand how disappointed I was about half-way through the book when I had to put it down. I found it quite boring and such a chore to pick up. Perhaps I had formed my own conceptions of who the models were and what their lives must have been like, from spending a lifetime loving and admiring this painting, and the book just didn't do it justice. Or perhaps it was just mundane and overly concerned with historical detail so as to clash with the light, whimsical and relaxed feel of the painting itself. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this novel.
