However, the last words of the story give an idea of the breathless, high sentimentality that can be expected throughout the book: The ending is worst of all – I won’t give it away to any readers who haven’t read the book, as it’s unusual for the genre. Sadly the excessive sentimentality (a failing to which Ethel Talbot was much prone) means any reader should keep a bucket to hand, for it will surely be needed. Patricia becomes torn between the way she knows, from her time at Chad’s, things ought to be and the feeling that these ways cause too much pain to be right.Īs a plot it’s quite promising, and the book does have some interesting and revealing moments. She and the school in general are almost cruel to new girl Veronica in their efforts to force her to conform, and it’s not hard to imagine other girls going through the same misery before knuckling down. The eponymous Patricia is a model prefect at the beginning of the book, clearly a product of Chad’s school’s brainwashing ways.

Patricia, Prefect is painfully mawkish, with much embracing, a little kissing and some romantic and meaningful dancing. Today I intend to poke fun at three of these books. And there is a handful that ought to have been consigned to the wastepaper bin before they even reached an editor’s desk. Most are in that middle range of poor-but-okay to really-pretty-good. There are a very few Girls’ Own stories which really ought to become classics.

Jean's Two Schools by Ethel Talbot