Reviews - The Painter's Daughters

182 reviews for:

The Painter's Daughters

Emily Howes

3.86 AVERAGE

vshah's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 71%

It didn’t deliver on the promised plot, was too long, slow, and meandering.

lottie1803's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mwu's review against another edition

4.0

dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

cathebes's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 56%

I didnt like the tone, not the authors fault but its too depressing and its a true story but with heavy conjecture which makes me uncomfortable

starrynightsandfirelight's review against another edition

4.5

emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

liacad's review against another edition

4.25

emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

paracyclops's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Emily Howes picked out a couple of individuals forgotten by history, prompted perhaps by the vividness of the portraits their father painted of them. The Painter's daughters takes its title from Thomas Gainsborough's painting 'The Painter's daughters chasing a butterfly', and it tells a story of those two women, from early childhood until the end of their lives. It is one version of them, making several assumptions that a historian would question, but it is in many ways extremely plausible. As a representation of the experience of middle-class women in eighteenth century England, it is remarkably compelling. From the uncertainties of the protagonists' lives (especially in the first half of the novel) there emerges a quiet sense of creeping dread that I found as chilling as any horror fiction I've read.

This is a thematically complex book, drawing a web of connections between lineage, inherited disease, mental illness, conformity, social insecurity, representation, and the inner and outer lives of its characters. Its narrative is compelling and draws the reader on at pace, abetted by seamless, immersive worldbuilding, and characters that are too rough-edged and inconsistent to be disbelieved. Howes encompasses the span of a human life brilliantly, letting the fragmented perceptions of the child illuminate the melancholy retrospective of the old, and vice versa. It is a story about the limits placed on women, but it is also about the many and various ways in which they collide with those limits, and the lives they are able to forge within them. It is not exactly a hopeful story, and it is in many ways a tragedy, but it is also in some sense a celebration of that struggle. It is beautifully written in simple, transparent prose, and for a first novel, it is a very impressive achievement.