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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
The coachman tried to warn her away from the ruined, forbidding place on the rainswept Cornish coast. But young Mary Yellan chose instead to honor her mother's dying request that she join her frightened Aunt Patience and huge, hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn at Jamaica Inn. From her first glimpse on that raw November eve, she could sense the inn's dark power. But never did Mary dream that she would become hopelessly ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within its crumbling walls -- or that a handsome, mysterious stranger would so incite her passions ... tempting her to love a man whom she dares not trust.
This was a fantastic dip back into another classic novel from renowned author Daphne Du Maurier for me. Following a buddy read a few months back of Rebecca, a group of lovely bookstagrammers including the wonderful @candlelitcreations, decided that we should give this one a shot and it did not disappoint. This book was filled with tantalizing suspense and mystery with the perfect backdrop of a dark English Moor that set the mood for a perfect late night read.
I think a major strength of Maurier is creating such dynamic characters who are perfectly complex that they do a great job standing up to the test of time. I really enjoyed the shift in main heroines compared to Rebecca as the young Mary is refreshingly feisty compared to the women of her time you often find in literature.
Is this a bit predictable? Sure. But I don’t think it distracts from the solidity of the story itself and I think the writing coming from Maurier more than makes up for it. If you are looking for a classic that stands out differently compared to the usual Austen’s or Brontë’s, I think you should consider Daphne Du Maurier!
This was a fantastic dip back into another classic novel from renowned author Daphne Du Maurier for me. Following a buddy read a few months back of Rebecca, a group of lovely bookstagrammers including the wonderful @candlelitcreations, decided that we should give this one a shot and it did not disappoint. This book was filled with tantalizing suspense and mystery with the perfect backdrop of a dark English Moor that set the mood for a perfect late night read.
I think a major strength of Maurier is creating such dynamic characters who are perfectly complex that they do a great job standing up to the test of time. I really enjoyed the shift in main heroines compared to Rebecca as the young Mary is refreshingly feisty compared to the women of her time you often find in literature.
Is this a bit predictable? Sure. But I don’t think it distracts from the solidity of the story itself and I think the writing coming from Maurier more than makes up for it. If you are looking for a classic that stands out differently compared to the usual Austen’s or Brontë’s, I think you should consider Daphne Du Maurier!
Let me start by saying that DuMaurier is an amazing writer. Her landscape descriptions are so beautiful and capture the setting of Cornwall so wonderfully.
I love Cornwall and loved reading about places that are familiar to me.
I enjoyed the novel throughout but found it really got into its stride in the last 75 pages or so. This was when the real thriller elements came in to play for me. I really felt the tension building, particularly in the scene where Mary returns to Jamaica Inn to find Joss Merlyn and Aunt Patience murdered.
I was doubtful of the trustworthiness of the vicar from Altarnum from the beginning, and when the big reveal came I was pleased to know my instincts were right!!
I loved Jem as a character and found the scenes with him in quite entertaining.
Mary was quite a strong character throughout but I found it hard to connect with her and didn’t have as much sympathy for her as I’d have liked. Even though she was involved in a lot of action in the novel, she still felt sort of passive to me.
However, it was a great novel and another example of DuMaurier’s skill and mastery of the novel form. But, it definitely does not surpass ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ for me - my favourite novel of hers that I’ve read so far!
I love Cornwall and loved reading about places that are familiar to me.
I enjoyed the novel throughout but found it really got into its stride in the last 75 pages or so. This was when the real thriller elements came in to play for me. I really felt the tension building, particularly in the scene where Mary returns to Jamaica Inn to find Joss Merlyn and Aunt Patience murdered.
I was doubtful of the trustworthiness of the vicar from Altarnum from the beginning, and when the big reveal came I was pleased to know my instincts were right!!
I loved Jem as a character and found the scenes with him in quite entertaining.
Mary was quite a strong character throughout but I found it hard to connect with her and didn’t have as much sympathy for her as I’d have liked. Even though she was involved in a lot of action in the novel, she still felt sort of passive to me.
However, it was a great novel and another example of DuMaurier’s skill and mastery of the novel form. But, it definitely does not surpass ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ for me - my favourite novel of hers that I’ve read so far!
This one took me forever to get through because I tried listening to it as an audiobook first, and the narrator made Mary sound like a flustered old woman. I couldn’t get past it. Once I switched to ebook it was much easier to appreciate Du Maurier’s style and the mystery of the book. It was a little predictable, I thought, but otherwise I enjoyed it.
This lesser-known work by the author of Rebecca kept me entertained throughout. As I learn more about the Gothic literary tradition, it was exciting to recognize common tropes and use them to make predictions for the plot.
There is a strong undercurrent of old-fashioned gender norms and sexism that tampered my enjoyment. I am especially disappointed with the ending in that regard, as the protagonist goes from an independent woman who "can do the work of a man" on a farm, to a woman who puts her own dreams aside to follow a man.
The plot: Mary Yellen moves in with her aunt and uncle at Jamaica Inn after the death of her mother. The Inn takes no guests and has a bad reputation around town and the inn-keeper, Uncle Joss Merlin, is a violent and belligerent man. Mary is determined to learn what shady goings-on are giving the inn such a bad reputation and to get her aunt out of such a miserable situation.
There is a strong undercurrent of old-fashioned gender norms and sexism that tampered my enjoyment. I am especially disappointed with the ending in that regard, as the protagonist goes from an independent woman who "can do the work of a man" on a farm, to a woman who puts her own dreams aside to follow a man.
The plot: Mary Yellen moves in with her aunt and uncle at Jamaica Inn after the death of her mother. The Inn takes no guests and has a bad reputation around town and the inn-keeper, Uncle Joss Merlin, is a violent and belligerent man. Mary is determined to learn what shady goings-on are giving the inn such a bad reputation and to get her aunt out of such a miserable situation.
An excellent classic by Daphne du Maurier. Didn't really buy the romance, though.
This book is terrible. I picked it up because the author’s best known work (Rebecca) is a long-standing favourite of mine, so I wanted to try some of her other work. This doesn’t even feel like the same author, unless she wrote it in a fugue state. The characters are barely sketched out, none are likeable in any sense, the plot is bizarre and rambling and I overall couldn’t wait for it to be finished, and it’s a short book. Skip this and read Rebecca instead, at least that book is amazing.
As with 'Rebecca', my favourite part of du Maurier's writing here is again the creation of atmosphere - the endless descriptions of the moors; how they went from gloomy to terrifying; the rain and the howling winds and the numb feet; the gaiety of Launceston and the feeling of being free - which is incredibly sustained.
The novel is so pure and vivid, that you can often feel the rain or the see the fog, feel Mary's shiver of discomfort - and I feel that the language is very accessible, unlike many novels that are deemed classic, 'Jamaica Inn' reads aseasily as a modern thriller.
Because it is so beautifully written, readers might be able to forget that there is a plot attached to all of this imagery - for me, it was secondary to the writing. I felt that her moral struggle, becoming part of, and witness to the evils done by her uncle and his followers was balanced by her good intentions and her acknowledgement of the horror.
The only action I did not really feel fit with Mary's narrative was hopping onto Jem's cart to go north - like her Aunt Patience, she fell in love with a storm, and I guess the difference is that Jem, while crude and a thief, is not an evil man and so Mary could love him with that purity of heart. So in the end, 'Jamaica Inn' came across as both a moral tale and a human one, and I highly recommend it. 5 stars.
The novel is so pure and vivid, that you can often feel the rain or the see the fog, feel Mary's shiver of discomfort - and I feel that the language is very accessible, unlike many novels that are deemed classic, 'Jamaica Inn' reads aseasily as a modern thriller.
Because it is so beautifully written, readers might be able to forget that there is a plot attached to all of this imagery - for me, it was secondary to the writing. I felt that her moral struggle, becoming part of, and witness to the evils done by her uncle and his followers was balanced by her good intentions and her acknowledgement of the horror.
The only action I did not really feel fit with Mary's narrative was hopping onto Jem's cart to go north - like her Aunt Patience, she fell in love with a storm, and I guess the difference is that Jem, while crude and a thief, is not an evil man and so Mary could love him with that purity of heart. So in the end, 'Jamaica Inn' came across as both a moral tale and a human one, and I highly recommend it. 5 stars.
I love Daphne du Maurier. My Cousin Rachel and Rebecca were both powerful gut-punchy novels and I went into Jamaica Inn expecting the same sort of thing. Unfortunately, it did not deliver. The story was straightforward, deliciously suspenseful and atmospheric, but without all of the shocking twists and turns that made the aforementioned books so memorable. From someone else, this might have been a five star book, but compared to du Maurier's other work, it falls short. Maybe this is because it was one of her earliest novels, before the success of Rebecca, or perhaps my two favorites of du Maurier's work are flukes, and most of her work is like Jamaica Inn. That remains to be seen, but I am still a devoted du Maurier fan girl, and this book was solid.
Jamaica Inn tells the story of plucky young heroine Mary Yellan who, after her mother dies, moves to the titular inn to live with her vibrant Aunt Patience and Patience's supposedly amazing husband, Joss Merlyn. When Mary arrives, though, she realizes that her preconceptions were flawed. Aunt Patience is no longer the vibrant youth Mary remembers, Joss is hardly the Prince Charming that she expected, and Jamaica Inn is a seedy place that the locals distrust. Mary makes the best of it, but she soon realizes that Jamaica Inn hides a lot of secrets, and none of them are good.
I liked Mary Yellan. She was a tough-as-nails, rebellious, hardcore young woman who didn't back down from anybody. She wasn't taking any of Joss Merlyn's shit, except as much as was required to stay with her Aunt Patience. I liked her romance with Jem, the sort of reluctant way that she fell in love with him, and how charming he was. Sure, he was sexist as hell, as were most of the characters in this book, but he was still attractive in that "bad boy" kind of way.
Despite being a tough girl, Mary made a few dumb decisions, and I saw them coming from a mile away even though it wasn't confirmed until the "grand reveal" toward the end of the book. But predictability doesn't always ruin a book for me. I didn't mind that the ending was predictable, because I enjoyed the journey to get to that point very much. Jamaica Inn's greatest strength is the atmosphere. I love the windswept, desolate moors of the Cornish countryside. It is reminiscent of the Brontes, who of course I love as well.
3-stars, although it would be 5-stars from anybody but my beloved Daphne.
Jamaica Inn tells the story of plucky young heroine Mary Yellan who, after her mother dies, moves to the titular inn to live with her vibrant Aunt Patience and Patience's supposedly amazing husband, Joss Merlyn. When Mary arrives, though, she realizes that her preconceptions were flawed. Aunt Patience is no longer the vibrant youth Mary remembers, Joss is hardly the Prince Charming that she expected, and Jamaica Inn is a seedy place that the locals distrust. Mary makes the best of it, but she soon realizes that Jamaica Inn hides a lot of secrets, and none of them are good.
I liked Mary Yellan. She was a tough-as-nails, rebellious, hardcore young woman who didn't back down from anybody. She wasn't taking any of Joss Merlyn's shit, except as much as was required to stay with her Aunt Patience. I liked her romance with Jem, the sort of reluctant way that she fell in love with him, and how charming he was. Sure, he was sexist as hell, as were most of the characters in this book, but he was still attractive in that "bad boy" kind of way.
Despite being a tough girl, Mary made a few dumb decisions, and I saw them coming from a mile away even though it wasn't confirmed until the "grand reveal" toward the end of the book. But predictability doesn't always ruin a book for me. I didn't mind that the ending was predictable, because I enjoyed the journey to get to that point very much. Jamaica Inn's greatest strength is the atmosphere. I love the windswept, desolate moors of the Cornish countryside. It is reminiscent of the Brontes, who of course I love as well.
3-stars, although it would be 5-stars from anybody but my beloved Daphne.
There's a good deal to this book, but the narrative is a little weak and the style is very heavy and wooden. It raises interesting questions about agency and the roles people play: Mary is a woman and tells herself that she has a role to play as such, and it is frustrating at times to see her so hampered by those roles. The line between good and bad is blurred very well, and people who do bad things are given a degree of depth. However the characters are overall too obvious, and lack a little depth to them; rarely does anyone do anything that reveals much about themselves, and the twist is bizarre and rather poorly handled. There are exciting episodes, but I can't help but feel that this book doesn't quite live up to its own expectations. It is attempting to be a bildungsroman along the lines of Jane Eyre, but doesn't quite get there. Not a terrible read, and worth it if you visit Cornwall; but otherwise a little flat.