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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
had good parts but much too slow and much too long, took over a year to finish it
I really liked the language of this novel and the attention to historical detail, but it's not a book I would recommend widely. In some ways, it feels like three novels in one: historical novel, lesbian erotica, and thriller. But ultimately it's kind of a downer, and the ending feels purposely unsatisfying.
it was a mid-tier slow burn… kind of basic in plot but and characters were flat. points for being a sapphic romance though
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this book based on how much I remembered loving the same author’s Tipping the Velvet fifteen years ago. I only read a short blurb and didn’t know what the meat of the plot was actually about. I was very surprised.
If you want to know more of the plot, but not major twists or ending:An older woman and her spinster daughter, living alone after the sons were killed in WWI and the husband died of a heart attack, are financially ruined and have to take in a young married couple as lodgers. The daughter is a lesbian and starts having an affair with the woman lodger. Then the man lodger dies unexpectedly and that’s where the majority of the tension in the book comes from. So it’s a sapphic love story? But also mostly a murder… not mystery? A crime drama, perhaps.
If you want to know whether it has a happy ending:Yes? It leaves you hanging a bit but it’s not the tragic ending I feared. Further ending spoilers: The male lodge is the only person in the book who dies. No LGBTQ+ deaths.
If you want to know more of the plot, but not major twists or ending:
If you want to know whether it has a happy ending:
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Outing, Gaslighting, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I don’t love this as much as other works by Sarah Waters, but I did enjoy it and wanted to know what would happen. However, the characters always seemed flat.
Woo! This is a stunning work but also a trudge to get through. It is painstakingly slow... however, I was so in love with the time period and curious to see where the story would take these characters that I didn't mind the pace for once, though it plods more in the back half.
What I wanted more of, however, is a sense of place. This is the start of the flapper era! Waters creates such a sensuous world and full of women who are just getting their first tastes of true independence. I wanted more of the Frances we learned about who threw a shoe in protest over the war; I wanted more of this society of women who have to be secretive about their female love affairs and lovers. I wanted more glimpses of society post WWI, at the dawn of the true suffrage movement, of the Roaring Twenties.
I mostly wanted Frances and Lilian to be out of that house. The location for the bulk of the novel becomes stifling. It is by design, but still. The claustrophobia becomes real.
Their love affair was so genuine and so painstakingly drawn. I appreciated the time Waters took to get these two women together (you know it is going to happen almost immediately) and the slow burn of a crime and passion that tears them apart.
The language in the novel is beautifully descriptive, dripping with vivid imagery and sensuality. You cannot fault Waters for her prose, even if the story could have been trimmed somewhat.
I didn't LOVE the book, but it did keep me intrigued.
What I wanted more of, however, is a sense of place. This is the start of the flapper era! Waters creates such a sensuous world and full of women who are just getting their first tastes of true independence. I wanted more of the Frances we learned about who threw a shoe in protest over the war; I wanted more of this society of women who have to be secretive about their female love affairs and lovers. I wanted more glimpses of society post WWI, at the dawn of the true suffrage movement, of the Roaring Twenties.
I mostly wanted Frances and Lilian to be out of that house. The location for the bulk of the novel becomes stifling. It is by design, but still. The claustrophobia becomes real.
Their love affair was so genuine and so painstakingly drawn. I appreciated the time Waters took to get these two women together (you know it is going to happen almost immediately) and the slow burn of a crime and passion that tears them apart.
The language in the novel is beautifully descriptive, dripping with vivid imagery and sensuality. You cannot fault Waters for her prose, even if the story could have been trimmed somewhat.
I didn't LOVE the book, but it did keep me intrigued.
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated