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krobart's review
4.0
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/day-763-the-vets-daughter/
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/day-763-the-vets-daughter/
thebookboy's review
5.0
More of a 4.5 but rounding it up to a 5 due to sheer enjoyment.
I love anything a bit quirky and gothic, so The Vet's Daughter was the perfect choice. Reminiscent of Shirley Jackson's style and yet with a more prominent thread of good humour running through, Comyns' novel is a fun exploration into Edwardian England, gender roles, parental tyranny, the fragility of young women at the time and much, much more.
It's a highly visual piece - there are parrots in the bathroom, small sets of puppies, deaf/mute characters who can only converse with their hands. It feels sort of like a fairytale in many ways (wicked "stepmother", magical goings on, escapes to the countryside) and yet it retains a really nice sense of unique power which means that it doesn't feel cliche or tired.
Highly recommended - I think these characters will stick with me for a long time!
5 stars.
I love anything a bit quirky and gothic, so The Vet's Daughter was the perfect choice. Reminiscent of Shirley Jackson's style and yet with a more prominent thread of good humour running through, Comyns' novel is a fun exploration into Edwardian England, gender roles, parental tyranny, the fragility of young women at the time and much, much more.
It's a highly visual piece - there are parrots in the bathroom, small sets of puppies, deaf/mute characters who can only converse with their hands. It feels sort of like a fairytale in many ways (wicked "stepmother", magical goings on, escapes to the countryside) and yet it retains a really nice sense of unique power which means that it doesn't feel cliche or tired.
Highly recommended - I think these characters will stick with me for a long time!
5 stars.
briancrandall's review against another edition
5.0
I wandered round the streets of Clapham and Battersea in a dreary kind of dream. I remember looking in the windows of a number of outsize women's shops from which smirking, comely matrons, wearing shapeless dresses, gazed back at me with glass eyes. I walked on Clapham Common, where already autumn bonfires were burning although the leaves had hardly begun to fall, and ice-cream cornets were still being sold. I awoke from my dreary dream to listen to the speech-makers. I couldn't understand what they were talking about, but gathered they were mostly angry about something. I listened to the Salvation Army band, and somehow felt afraid of them. Terrible thoughts about Father putting Mother to sleep came into my mind, and I felt I might start shouting them out loud to the music. [34]
motherslug's review
4.0
I have been GUTTED. The Flannery & Stephen King combo referenced on the back cover here is spot-on; Flannery's Christ-haunted atmosphere minus the Christ (I know, that sounds weird, but it makes perfect sense here) with Stephen King's Carrie and you have a taste of this book.
oldenglishrose's review against another edition
4.0
The Vet’s Daughter tells the story of Alice, the eponymous vet’s daughter, who lives in an unfashionable area of London with her irritable, brusque, cruel father, her timid, suffering mother and a whole menagerie of animals. Following a series of traumatic occurrences in her life, Alice discovers that she has the ability to levitate and things appear to improve for her: she moves to rural Hampshire to act as companion to a frail lady and finally begins to enjoy herself away from the tyranny of her father. However, this cannot last for long and soon she finds herself even worse off than before.
The novel is written in the first person from Alice’s perspective, in prose that is spare and bleak with not a single word being wasted and no event without significance at some point in the novel. The starkness of the writing makes the terrible things that happen stand out because they are reported in such a mundane way. The straightforward nature of these simple statements makes it seem as though these situations are usual, and my heart went out to Alice every time I read something like this that she should think that the case. Her voice is lost and sorrowful, a child trying to make sense of an adult world which is cruel and confusing, and at times it is almost painful to read. There are brief flashes of happiness, but these are fleeting and serve only to provide glimpses of what the reader quickly suspects Alice will never be able to attain. These pleasant experiences are always cut off prematurely.
Although she is the narrator, Alice has no agency in this sad little novel: things happen to her and all she can do is talk about them to the reader. Her power goes no further than little things, such as rescuing a woodlouse from the fire with a teaspoon, and that makes this actions seem all the more poignant and significant. There are times when she appears to be able to exercise her own will, but this is swiftly undermined as Alice is brought back down to where she started. Her lack of ability to act makes her seem somehow detached from the events of the novel, as though she is disconnected from them even though they happen to her. This detachment is manifested in Alice’s levitation, which Comyns handles very skillfully. I like the way that at first it is impossible to say whether Alice really floats in the air or whether it is just her imagination protecting her mind from things that have happened to her. Even so, told in the same style of prose as the rest of the novel, her levitation comes across as simple fact and I accepted it without question.
Even Alice’s levitation goes from being something that she can control at will to something that she must do at the will of others and so it is in many ways emblematic of her position in the novel. It’s not just a silly device to add interest or get around awkward plot problems (my issue with a lot of magical realism) but an integral part of the book which is vital to the tragic yet inevitable ending.
The novel is written in the first person from Alice’s perspective, in prose that is spare and bleak with not a single word being wasted and no event without significance at some point in the novel. The starkness of the writing makes the terrible things that happen stand out because they are reported in such a mundane way. The straightforward nature of these simple statements makes it seem as though these situations are usual, and my heart went out to Alice every time I read something like this that she should think that the case. Her voice is lost and sorrowful, a child trying to make sense of an adult world which is cruel and confusing, and at times it is almost painful to read. There are brief flashes of happiness, but these are fleeting and serve only to provide glimpses of what the reader quickly suspects Alice will never be able to attain. These pleasant experiences are always cut off prematurely.
Although she is the narrator, Alice has no agency in this sad little novel: things happen to her and all she can do is talk about them to the reader. Her power goes no further than little things, such as rescuing a woodlouse from the fire with a teaspoon, and that makes this actions seem all the more poignant and significant. There are times when she appears to be able to exercise her own will, but this is swiftly undermined as Alice is brought back down to where she started. Her lack of ability to act makes her seem somehow detached from the events of the novel, as though she is disconnected from them even though they happen to her. This detachment is manifested in Alice’s levitation, which Comyns handles very skillfully. I like the way that at first it is impossible to say whether Alice really floats in the air or whether it is just her imagination protecting her mind from things that have happened to her. Even so, told in the same style of prose as the rest of the novel, her levitation comes across as simple fact and I accepted it without question.
Even Alice’s levitation goes from being something that she can control at will to something that she must do at the will of others and so it is in many ways emblematic of her position in the novel. It’s not just a silly device to add interest or get around awkward plot problems (my issue with a lot of magical realism) but an integral part of the book which is vital to the tragic yet inevitable ending.
cgduckworth's review
4.0
the more i consider the ending of this book, which initially seemed surprising, the more i find it perfect and right, especially:
(spoiler)
"Grabbing hands stretched towards me, but I willed myself to rise higher because I was so afraid of falling on the people. I did manage for a little to float horizontally away from the crowd; but, when I next looked down, they were all below me again. I was so exhausted I knew I could not stay above them much longer. Soon I’d be down amongst them."
(spoiler)
"Grabbing hands stretched towards me, but I willed myself to rise higher because I was so afraid of falling on the people. I did manage for a little to float horizontally away from the crowd; but, when I next looked down, they were all below me again. I was so exhausted I knew I could not stay above them much longer. Soon I’d be down amongst them."
sloatsj's review
4.0
I read this very quickly because the protagonist, Alice, is so sympathetic, an abused child with a good heart with whom you suffer and hope.
It's a realistic story and straightforward. Alice's mother dies near the beginning, leaving her desolate with her evil father, whom Alice suspects of poisoning the mother. The father's new girlfriend is terrible, and assists in a crime against Alice, who luckily escapes home temporarily to be a companion for the elderly mother of a suitor. The elderly mother was to me also extremely sympathetic -- I recognize much of my own elderly mother's sadness and powerlessless in her. Anyway, that is rather a side story.
Alongside the realistic plot and narration Alice discovers she has a supernatural talent, which I found a little hard to accept in a story like this. I thought she was perhaps deluded or hallucinating, but it is borne out by witnesses. After finishing and reflecting I find this bizarre twist easier to appreciate.
It's a realistic story and straightforward. Alice's mother dies near the beginning, leaving her desolate with her evil father, whom Alice suspects of poisoning the mother. The father's new girlfriend is terrible, and assists in a crime against Alice, who luckily escapes home temporarily to be a companion for the elderly mother of a suitor. The elderly mother was to me also extremely sympathetic -- I recognize much of my own elderly mother's sadness and powerlessless in her. Anyway, that is rather a side story.
Alongside the realistic plot and narration Alice discovers she has a supernatural talent, which I found a little hard to accept in a story like this. I thought she was perhaps deluded or hallucinating, but it is borne out by witnesses. After finishing and reflecting I find this bizarre twist easier to appreciate.
saltycorpse's review against another edition
4.0
Solid Edwardian Gothic with a simmering, foreboding atmosphere.