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9th book for 2024.

Disappointed. I loved the first-two thirds of the book; but the last two chapters really dragged (the last few pages were like trying to read as my mind was increasingly deprived of oxygen).

I wanted to like this novel more and the initial chapters were brilliant. The scenes on the River Thames during the Frost Fair were amazing, but somehow the book got less interesting as it went on. It's not the concept of the book—I love the idea of the protagonist living three hundred years and changing sex at some point—but I just found the ideas somehow lost their charm in the middle of the 19th Century; and Orlando as they approached the present became less-and-less interesting.

I also found the feminism in the book more muted than I expected.

Surprisingly, I find both the film adaptations I have seen—Sally Potter's Orlando, and Paul Preciado's Orlando, My Political Biography—much better than the source material.

3-stars.