Book Review: The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit by Sara Jane Loyster

“Why had he decided to paint the older girls in shadow and the younger ones in the light?”

Sara Loyster, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

Review:

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is one of my favorite paintings. I was ecstatic to see that someone had written a novel inspired by it! Going in, I didn’t realize it would be a time travel story. While those are hit or miss for me, I enjoyed how this one was done. It worked well.

Fourteen-year-old Victoria is approaching her fifteenth birthday and is feeling a bout of isolation. Her best friend has recently moved away, she feels self-conscious about having to wear a back brace due to scoliosis, and she feels suffocated by her overprotective mother. Things begin to look up for her when she meets a new friend at the Museum of Fine Arts, but her life also grows more complicated. During the same trip she meets her new friend Hillary, she finds herself pulled inside John Singer Sargent’s painting, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit.

Unsettled as she is at first stepping foot into 1880s Paris, her reason for being there becomes clear as she befriends the two younger Boit sisters, Mary Louisa and Julia. Victoria knows the eventual fate of the two older sisters, Florence and Jane, but she learns throughout her visits that they could be in more immediate danger. She does everything in her power to help the girls, all while trying to manage a new friendship and her parents back in 1963.

I was captivated by this book! I enjoyed reading both timelines, and I found Victoria to be a wonderful protagonist. Watching her friendship with Hillary grow felt authentic, showing the ups and downs and moods of teenagers. I did feel, though, that there were a lot of extra things going on in the book that didn’t relate to the main story, especially 1960s political issues. It went beyond describing the time period and became full-on deviations. Aside from this, I thoroughly enjoyed the story and appreciated the serious issues it tackled. 

Likes & Dislikes:

What I liked:

• The time travel was done well.
• Victoria and Hillary’s friendship.
• How protective Victoria felt of Mary Louisa and Julia, adopting them as sisters in a sense.

What I didn’t like:

• Had a lot of random commentary on the political issues of the time that didn’t relate to the issues the story was discussing. (Especially when it came to religion, painting an inaccurate picture of Catholicism, which felt like it was done out of a lack of understanding rather than maliciously.)
• I wish there had been a little more time spent on Victoria’s relationship with her mother, especially toward the end of the book.

Afterthoughts:

I’ve seen this painting in person before, but I wish I had discovered this book sooner as The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is currently loaned out and I wasn’t able to see it when I made a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts after reading it. But I was able to get other books about it while I was there, so I look forward to reading those in the future.

Where to buy the book: