Gone With the Wind

Frack. I mean...I just...frack.

I am so torn. This is a phenomenal, epic, horrible tale. It's really, really hard to look past all the -isms and dismiss them as a sign of the times. It's also hard not to give credit where it's due, to an author whose prose doesn't feel superfluous (quite a feat, given the book's length) and who managed to evoke sympathy—albeit fleeting—for those undeserving of it.

And so it appears I've talked myself into a 5. Frack.

Greedy little brat
beautiful bottomless pit
well-bred succubus.

Simultaneously an excellently written historical romance, and a piece of racist propaganda by an author who believed the “southern lost cause” myth, that being that the civil war was not over slavery and romanticized the plantation-era south, including downplaying slavery as “benevolent”- not remotely historically accurate. Unfortunately it was used by post reconstruction southerners as a piece of political propaganda to support their the romanticization of the antebellum south. Enjoy it but enjoy it critically.