Judy’s a likeable, forthright and fiercely independent character who reflects Webster’s own background as a socialist and a suffragette.
Both stories are told through letters, Judy’s narrative is fairly light and frothy presenting a vivid picture of her years studying, reading voraciously, going to parties and starting out on a writing career, it’s engaging and entertaining even though the power dynamics of the underlying romance are more than a little dodgy from a contemporary perspective. Dear Enemy returns to the orphanage where Judy grew up but this time follows her best friend Sallie McBride who reluctantly takes over its day-to-day-management.
In Daddy Long-Legs orphan Judy Abbott's life’s changed when an anonymous benefactor sponsors her college education, the only condition that she sends letters updating him on her progress.
Jean Webster’s linked novels feature young, spirited ‘new’ women carving out lives for themselves, the kind that wouldn’t be out of place alongside Anne Shirley or Jo in Little Women. I can't explain the softness of the feelings she has me feel, she makes my eyes well up talking about the mundane things, she breaks my heart out of sheer love I feel for the characters she makes, she makes me relive all the romance of all the centuries, and so when I got this book as a gift in English I couldn't contain myself, I rushed home to read it and because of how much I love it, I did myself the pleasure of reading it all out loud, I had to see that I love these words at 30 as much as I loved them at 13 and I did, actually i love every word more, i love the fact that it's an epistolary novel, how Sallie sits down to write her heart out before it implodes with emotions, I think I had to do the same. I first read this book as a translation when I was a teenager, I loved Judy and daddy long legs, but that was only the first book, then I found out there's a sequel and i had to have it, I got it and i read it and never had I been more touched so deeply, the only other writer who does that to me is Charlotte Bronte and Jean Webster is a true disciple.
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