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rachel1106's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Dark, gothic tale that is slow, but full of suspense. Nicely written. The ending is a bit anticlimactic, but it makes sense the precautions that would be taken, given how worse the outcome would've been for a house of young ladies, whose side of the war has been lost.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gore, Animal death, Classism, Death of parent, Animal cruelty, Racism, Racial slurs, and Alcoholism
erboe501's review
3.0
I read this book because I'm doing a presentation on Sofia Coppola's 2017 adaptation. I found her movie unsettling in some way; I just couldn't get it out of my head. So I listened to a podcast about how she erased the black female slave character from Cullinan's original novel. This turned into my presentation topic: how the erasure of the slave Mattie from the movie contributes to a racialized Southern identity, the product of years of ignoring black experiences when constructing Southern memory and history.
I came to the novel after watching both the 2017 and 1971 film versions. You get to know the characters better in the book, obviously, because the pov alternates among all the women, even Mattie. I think the narrative drags out too long. You think you've hit the climax but then the final climax is a good bit later. The Union soldier, Corporal McBurney, is much younger in the book (about 20 years old) than he's portrayed in the movies, which I think is important to his perceived innocence or mischievousness. The movies also conflate a few of the female characters, which helps keep everything straight.
An interesting read to give context to the films, but I can see why this fell out of print after its publication before the 2017 adaptation.
I came to the novel after watching both the 2017 and 1971 film versions. You get to know the characters better in the book, obviously, because the pov alternates among all the women, even Mattie. I think the narrative drags out too long. You think you've hit the climax but then the final climax is a good bit later. The Union soldier, Corporal McBurney, is much younger in the book (about 20 years old) than he's portrayed in the movies, which I think is important to his perceived innocence or mischievousness. The movies also conflate a few of the female characters, which helps keep everything straight.
An interesting read to give context to the films, but I can see why this fell out of print after its publication before the 2017 adaptation.
sarieinsea's review
4.0
I really, really enjoyed this book. It's kind of hard to explain the tone - I think the word I'd use is "unsettling" because you never really know which characters, if any, you can trust or what exactly happened. The narrative shifts each chapter, so that you hear the perspectives of each of the women at the Farnsworth school, but you never hear from the soldier, Johnny. I kept changing my mind about the characters and what I thought was going on in the school as I read, but by the end you can draw a pretty strong conclusion about what happened.
The story is simple - one of the younger students at a ladies' school in Virginia finds an injured Union soldier in the woods nearby and brings him back to the house for care. The stern headmistress, Martha, is initially very apprehensive to allow him to stay, but ultimately decides to tend to his wounds and try to nurse him to health before turning him in to Confederate soldiers. While Johnny is recovering, he forms connections with each of the ladies in the house, the youngest of whom is ten. This causes them to begin to argue and turn against one another, and things slowly descend into chaos after two of the older girls fight over him and the physical brawl results in his leg breaking and his condition drastically worsening. Martha decides that the only way to preserve his life is to amputate his leg at the knee, which she does (in a fairly gruesome scene and without Johnny's consent).
After that, as they say, all hell breaks loose. Johnny begins to exact revenge on the ladies, and it becomes clear that no one is trustworthy, none of them are incapable of cruelty, and the situation isn't going to resolve itself neatly.
This is definitely a slow burn, but it's a fascinating and chilling read.
The story is simple - one of the younger students at a ladies' school in Virginia finds an injured Union soldier in the woods nearby and brings him back to the house for care. The stern headmistress, Martha, is initially very apprehensive to allow him to stay, but ultimately decides to tend to his wounds and try to nurse him to health before turning him in to Confederate soldiers. While Johnny is recovering, he forms connections with each of the ladies in the house, the youngest of whom is ten. This causes them to begin to argue and turn against one another, and things slowly descend into chaos after two of the older girls fight over him and the physical brawl results in his leg breaking and his condition drastically worsening. Martha decides that the only way to preserve his life is to amputate his leg at the knee, which she does (in a fairly gruesome scene and without Johnny's consent).
After that, as they say, all hell breaks loose. Johnny begins to exact revenge on the ladies, and it becomes clear that no one is trustworthy, none of them are incapable of cruelty, and the situation isn't going to resolve itself neatly.
This is definitely a slow burn, but it's a fascinating and chilling read.
westonwallis's review
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
annhenry's review
3.0
I was split between giving this book a 2 or a 3. I went with the 3 because as far as the writing goes, it wasnt bad. But to say this was a suspense novel is a stretch. I kept reading not out of suspense but wanting to know what he did that would make these women be evil. Yes, their actions were questionable but I didnt feel awed by their actions. It just seemed a bIt drawn out and lacking tension.
amonkhouse's review
evil man in house but what WOMEN do?? weak ladies! man trick ladies! but maybe man good after all and women bad??
teresalee's review
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.5
adam_armstrong_yu's review
4.0
Last weekend I saw The Beguiled and was freaking mesmerized by it. So, naturally I had to scoop up the book and read it immediately. I didn't realize how different the two versions would be. The book was chocked full of more "thriller" elements, and was told from the the point of view of each woman in the school house, so that the reader is provided with multiple perspectives that hinge on different interpretations, and especially misinterpretations, of events and other people's motivations and reasonings. The movie, meanwhile, seemed to strip the story to what it believed the essentials were, whereas the book kept the pages turning with plenty of duplicity, manipulations, and petty squabbling. What both manage to do so well, though, is depict women in isolation, self-imposed and otherwise, and the fragility of their constructed communities. All in all, the book is another entry in the Men-are-just-the-Worst canon, which I damn well love, so of course I enjoyed the hell out of this book. Now, get out there and go read this book/see this movie!
clare_tan_wenhui's review
4.0
More of a 3.5. This will be a mix of a book cum movie review, because I read the novel immediately after watching the recent 2017 film adaptation version, and my views towards both versions are sort of intertwined together.
The novel is definitely much more complex, with the characters fleshed out warts and all. All of them are quite deplorable in their own way, and you emerge not having much liking for any of them. Upon concluding the book, I was filled with a certain poetic grimness of how things have went.
The film trimmed quite a lot of the characters as well as their backgrounds and agenda. Nicole Kidman's film version of Martha Farnsworth is a condensed version of Martha, Mathilda Farnsworth and Emily Stevenson (both not present in the film), Kirsten Dunst's film version Edwina Morrow is more of a fusion of the characters of Harriet Farnsworth (not in the film version) and Edwina Morrow, and Elle Fanning's Alicia Simms seems to have been merged with some characteristics of the book's Marie Deveraux. No matter as this trimming and condensation were done, such that despite rendering the characters to be more simple-minded and innocent in their motivation and actions, this precisely amplifies the horror of the consequences when things go drastically south.
Both the novel and book are not for the fainthearted, especially if you are not ready to face the terrifying side of being human.
The novel is definitely much more complex, with the characters fleshed out warts and all. All of them are quite deplorable in their own way, and you emerge not having much liking for any of them. Upon concluding the book, I was filled with a certain poetic grimness of how things have went.
The film trimmed quite a lot of the characters as well as their backgrounds and agenda. Nicole Kidman's film version of Martha Farnsworth is a condensed version of Martha, Mathilda Farnsworth and Emily Stevenson (both not present in the film), Kirsten Dunst's film version Edwina Morrow is more of a fusion of the characters of Harriet Farnsworth (not in the film version) and Edwina Morrow, and Elle Fanning's Alicia Simms seems to have been merged with some characteristics of the book's Marie Deveraux. No matter as this trimming and condensation were done, such that despite rendering the characters to be more simple-minded and innocent in their motivation and actions, this precisely amplifies the horror of the consequences when things go drastically south.
Both the novel and book are not for the fainthearted, especially if you are not ready to face the terrifying side of being human.
dmbrzegowski's review
4.0
Some parts seem repetitive but overall a good story. Definitely keeps you in suspense.