Reviews - The Essex Serpent

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3.25k reviews for:

The Essex Serpent

Sarah Perry

3.53 AVERAGE

milread's review against another edition

3.5

emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mjcallahan94's review against another edition

2.75

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

hurrairah's review against another edition

cora is one of the worst female main characters i have read about in a while, absolutely could not phantom how was everyone in love with her.

i think this is very overhyped and i also CAN NOT stand love triangles and affairs

biannca's review against another edition

2.5

reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mahjabinmeem's review against another edition

5.0

We are cleaved together - we are cleaved apart - everything that draws me to you is everything that drives me away.

It seems inevitable that this book had to be written, otherwise how could these vivid characters reach us from beyond the pages, from the dark corner of the brilliant mind of Sarah Perry. These characters needed to be given life, they demanded it.

In this book, we are following characters who are orbiting around each other's life, with a magnetic push and pull reverberates through their bonds. In the center of it all is the newly widowed Cora Seaborne with her man's coats and man's boots, her stormy grey eyes, her infectious energy and her fossils. After the death of her husband, she moves to the rural Essex with her friend and maid Martha and her only son Francis. There she learns of a rumor of a 300 year old Essex Serpent which is haunting the village of Aldwinter and her amateur naturalist heart cannot resist the pull of mystery. While investigating, she is met with a pious vicar, William Ransome, who stands to be the complete opposite everything she believes in, yet they are drawn inexplicably together. Soon, the intensity of their relationship starts to unravel themselves and everyone around them.

The Essex Serpent is a magnificently written book. Sarah Perry's writing is bursting with vivacity and lushness, and she pours it all onto the pages. The descriptions of nature is gorgeous. She paints the wildness of rural Essex in such saturated detail, it's hard to imagine it in front of your eyes.

It struck her that everything under that white sky was made of the same substance—not quite animal, but not merely earth; where branches had sheared from their trunks they left bright wounds, and she would not have been surprised to see severed stumps of oak and elm pulse as she passed.

However, it's the characters which takes the book from good to excellent. Every single character and the relationship between them is written beautifully. Sarah Perry doesn't shy away from giving her characters vices. They are flawed, sometimes frustrating and always real. She created depth and complexity in them without any apparent effort.

‘I’ve never said this before, not to anyone, though I’ve meant to: but yes I’ve sold my soul, though I’m afraid it didn’t fetch too high a price. I had a faith, the sort I think you might be born with, but I’ve seen what it does and I traded it in. It’s a sort of blindness, or a choice to be mad—to turn your back on everything new and wonderful—not to see that there’s no fewer miracles in the microscope than in the gospels!’

The setting of this book is also unique. It is set around the 1890s where there are still remnants of Gothic Victorian London, but there are also traces of modern technology, progress and the problems that come with it. The characters travel by cabs, the doctors perform life-saving surgery, but there are also superstition and mythical beasts haunting people's minds. The balance of it was exquisitely crafted.

The last thing I want to say is that please don't read this book if you need something happening in every 3 sentences. It is not a plot driven book in the traditional sense, however I still found it to be thrilling and exciting. I wanted to come back to it whenever I put it down.

An absolutely delightful read!