Reviews

Write 100 times on the blackboard: I can acknowledge something is well written without enjoying it in the slightest.

A book in which very little happens in a singular location to a woman who I didn't care for, with occasional bursts of prose so profoundly beautiful that I felt like I would be doing a disservice to myself by dnf-ing it. Literature that is Shakespeare inspired often gets a hallpass by association but my god, Lear's wife was exasperating. I've written enough essays about the forgotten women of Shakespeare's canon that this should have been a hit, but I just found myself wanting Goneril and Regan's story about their callous and manipulative mother warping them into villains, not this self-righteous woman reminiscing about pitting her daughters against her husband and feeling noble about hiding her daughter sexual assault in fear of her tarnishing herself for future men. But of course she's the wronged party, because despite all the shit she pulled with her own family, people say mean things about her sometimes and she doesn't know why she's in exile.

She's not a powerful woman, she's a narc who hates women and gets to morph the story how she likes because everyone that could have contradicted her is dead. Maybe that's the point, but it didn't make it any more pleasant to read. If I was her daughter I'd have gotten her banished too.

unfiltered_fiction's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

gj377's review

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1.0

God, I really wanted to like this one. I love Shakespeare, and these stories that give voices to the women of literary and mythological history have been very popular in recent years, and I've liked a few. So a story following Lear's exiled wife after the end of the play should be right up my street.

But this was just so s l o w. I wasn't in the mood to read a book so slow. Other reviews have talked about its lyrical prose, but there's such a thing as too much lyricism in my opinion. You can't read a novel length poem where every sentence is a metaphor, a string of words to describe each individual thing, without any real pacing or plot. I got bored, and I found it a real slog to read.

I will say - the lyricism, if viewed as the main character's grief, almost works, and I wonder if that was what the author was going for. Her inability to fix her thoughts on one thing, constantly diving back into memory and metaphor, could be a reflection of her inability to focus through her grief after learning of the death of her husband and daughters. But it wasn't enough. Not for me, sadly.

Thanks to Canongate for an ARC of the book (via NetGalley).

flashandoutbreak's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

bhurlbut's review

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challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

girlglitch's review

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3.0

There is a lot to like about Learwife, a spirited retelling of Shakespeare through the eyes of Lear's strong and spiteful Queen. It is one of those books which leaves an immediate impression: you will know within the first few pages whether you'll love it or leave it.

Learwife is weighted heavily by its distinctive narrative voice, prose all but drowning in poetry. Thorpe clearly has a love for language, and in places, her writing is wonderfully lyrical, but most of the time I found it overbearing, a long string of compound words. While I can see why some readers will fall under its spell, I found it difficult to be swept up in a story that's more embellishment than bones.

*Thank you to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review*

hongjoongie's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Nobody knows my name, you know. Nobody alive.
She is confused. Nobody?
No. I was born with one, but they change them when you marry kings. Rather like with nuns. A pause. The room fills to the brim with ghosts, with Kent.

This moves her. A woman who colonised loneliness and made it profuse, rich with wings, but feels it as worrying in others. You could tell me. I could call you by your name.
The tenderness runs a split down the centre of the room. Perhaps after all it is not grief that folds up time but moments of gentleness.

I think I liked this more in theory than in practice. The book does what it’s meant to do incredibly well, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it.

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