The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray

The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray was our book club pick for April. In this book, we follow three timelines of women who lived at Chateau Lafayette - during the French Revolution and both World Wars. 

Look, this was long (565 pages!) and I did not care for it. The three voices were basically indistinguishable from one another. Because of the alternating storylines, as soon as you got into the groove, you'd switch time periods. I did learn a lot about the French Revolution, which was interesting, I guess.

Book club take was similar. The other people there listened on audio, which actually helped because each POV had a different narrator. One person actually started listening to one timeline at a time and then switched to the other timeline so there were fewer jumps from one storyline to another which I thought was a super genius idea. 

2.5/5 stars - I would have DNFed this if it had not been for book club

Lines of note:

"There are millions dying - if we stopped to grieve, we should never stop." (page 352)

"After Bastille Day, you wanted to tell me what life is. Well, let me tell you. It's hard. We lose people we love. Our dreams fall to shit. Then we die. It happens to everyone. But at least we can go down fighting." (page 503)

Things I looked up:

Maginot Line (page 14) - named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Nazi Germany and force them to move around the fortifications

Beast of Gévaudan (page 36) - the historic name associated with a man-eating animal or animals that terrorized the former province of Gévaudan (consisting of the modern-day department of Lozère and part of Haute-Loire), in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France between 1764 and 1767

corvée (page 97) - a form of unpaid forced labor that is intermittent in nature, lasting for limited periods of time, typically only a certain number of days' work each year

tympanum (page 209) - is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, which is bounded by a lintel and an arch

Riom Trial (page 263 and elsewhere) - an attempt by the Vichy France regime, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, to prove that the leaders of the French Third Republic (1870–1940) had been responsible for France's defeat by Germany in 1940

Gurkha (page 325) - soldiers native to the Indian subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of North India

sepoy (page 325) -  term denoting professional Indian infantryman

Hat mentions (why hats?): 45 hats in this book! I'll just share with you the repeats. 

new hat (page 45, 80, 82, 165, 231, 355, 542)

my hat (page 83, 250, 374, 396, 397, x2 on page 398)

big hats (x2 on page 115)

Straw Hat Trimmers' Union (x2 on page 449)