Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

14 reviews

david_slack110507's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25


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elisabethshanahan's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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authorjuliankennedy's review

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reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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amy_moss's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Most of the bad reviews about this book are that it is too complicated and is hard to understand. Although this is true and on my first reading I found myself not understanding it or even missing huge plot points. 
However, after reading the book again, I love it!! I found myself intertwined in the relationships and the tension created. Even the imagery in the book is amazing with recurring symbols which speak volumes about the plot which makes me love it even more!
(Although I would warn any mr Rochester fans against reading it) 

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laurenbb23's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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morenowagain's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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clevermird's review

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challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

Oh boy...

Wide Sargasso Sea is the latest in my quest to read through the "great classics" of Western literary canon, and it's the first one I can truly say I didn't like. 

I should start by getting the elephant in the room out of the way - this book is essentially published Jane Eyre fanfiction. Now, that's not inherently a bad thing. The story makes little secret of it and the premise was intriguing. Who was Rochester's mad wife really? What was her side of the story? Sadly, although it does deliver the promised tale, Wide Sargasso Sea fails to offer much to a reader that they couldn't already have figured out for themself.

Antoinette Cosway lives with her mother and disabled younger brother in the crumbling ruins of their family's estate. When slavery was abolished, the family was plunged into near-poverty and rejected both by the freed slaves (who were understandably resentful of their former masters) and the white community (who saw them as both morally deficient former slave owners and as social inferiors). As she grows, the constant feelings of outcast will weigh down her mind and combine with her husband's own problems and lead to madness, infidelity, and a disaster of marriage that threatens to destroy both of them.

I was really disappointed in this book. I found Antoinette to be irritatingly childish and helpless. I know that the lack of agency she has in her own life is kind of one of the points of the book, but for me it moved past that and into "good grief, woman, stop wringing your hands and do something". Her husband, meanwhile kept oscillating between "very reasonable" and "what on earth is wrong with you?" In the end, rather than a portrait of a woman kept down by a cold and unfeeling man, or a tragedy of two hopelessly mis-matched souls, I wound up almost feeling like they deserved each other. 

The reason this book got more than two stars (instead of the 1.5 I would have given it otherwise) is the prose. It's beautiful, dreamy, almost stream-of-consciousness stuff that makes every line interesting to read on its own and really captures the almost fever-dream like nature of the story and the lush tropical setting. However, this proves as much a hindrance as a help, with major events often glossed over in favor of more mood setting. There were several important plot points that I was confused on because the writing style obfuscated them so much. 

Overall, a book with a promising start and an enjoyable writing style that fails to offer much of substance or deliver on the promised narrative.

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mariebrunelm's review

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challenging dark sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I don't read a lot of classics. School has clearly put me off reading them, and I don't see why I would relate more to a book written a hundred years ago than one written ten years ago. Yet from time to time I'm intrigued, like with Wide Sargasso Sea, which retells the story of Bertha, Mr Rochester's first wife in Jane Eyre.
First of all, the introduction to this book was really well written and helped me make the most of my reading by highlighting a few important themes and setting the scene. It helped me because I have to admit I struggled a bit with the narration to begin with. It feels very much like a dream - I didn't always knew where or when I was, or what was happening. But there was a beauty to the language, and a life, that kept me going. Jean Rhys was from Dominica, and she drew from her culture elements of language which makes the whole prose sing, even though I didn't find it always easy to grasp. As a result, I felt a little detached from the story, but at the same time I felt how necessary it was. This is clearly about flawed and unreliable narrators (we get the story from a few different characters's points of view) trapped in a flawed and unsatisfying relationship.
Rep: white Creole main character. 

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bethsicle's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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loxeletters's review against another edition

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reflective
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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