God Save the Queen • The Anglophile

The Anglophile by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Publisher: Red Dress Ink
Publication Date: August 1, 2005
Source: Bought || Paperback

Forget tall, dark, and handsome. For Shari there's only tall, pasty and from Across the Pond (despite her aunt's advice to find a nice Jewish boy). Ever since Shari first happened upon Christopher Robin in her childhood reading, she's had a passion for all things Anglo-Saxon. First it was books, then it was blokes, now . . . well, it's still blokes.

Unbeknownst to her, Kit, Shari's latest British conquest (and decidedly not a Jew), also happens to be her biggest competition in her search to find the last-known speaker of a language close to extinction. Shari's spent four years trying to find this guy so she can complete her Ph.D. and now Kit has beaten her to the punch? When she learns that there might be more (and less) to Kit than meets the eye, will this Anglophile turn her back on the land of tea and crumpets once and for all? 

I'm a bit of an Anglophile. For as long as I can remember, I've loved England, its history, culture and of course, the cute boys with their British accents. Obviously, when I saw The Anglophile, I snapped it up in relative excitement. That said, it was a bit of a disappointment to me. I had trouble getting past the first fifty pages and it really didn't hold my interest, so I struggled to get to the end of it. Though the premise was interesting at first glance, I found that I didn't like any of the characters in particular and that the love story that I'd been hoping for was basically non-existent.

One of the parts that I did end up enjoying was the bit about Abbey Road, and only because it had to do with the Beatles and London itself. I have a soft spot for touristy stuff like that, and so that particular part of The Anglophile definitely appealed to me. And, at the very least, I was happy with the ending!