I wanted to like this book more. I love the Gilded Age, and the 400 are so intriguing, but this book seemed to just want to roll up every social justice issue in this book that I felt are current issues of today. Not that they didn't happen back then, but to just hone in one issue. There was the issue of abortion, women's right to vote, homosexuality, extensive bribery, classism, misogyny, women's independence to not marry, and I'm sure more, but those are just a few. I think this book could have been more effective if there were just a couple of issues and not presented from the 2020 perspective. However, on the plus side there were some good stories about the Hope diamond and it's supposed curse, and the story was very easy to follow. There were no twists, but it was definitely not boring.
So yeah, just a 2.5 star really.