Scan barcode
A review by eggilybread
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
5.0
This book was absolutely beautiful and absolutely terrifying. It made my stomach churn and my heart ache for poor Lucrezia, who I wanted to pull out of the pages and place into the safety of a whimsical woodland with her own set of paints.
O’Farrell is a complete genius for this. I don’t care that the symbolism smacks you in the face; it was so poignant, so powerful, so gorgeously described. It made me actually stop and sit there and think about it even after I put the book down. And that’s everything I want from a book.
Structurally arresting, it plays around with chronology so that the tension is unbearable at times, the reader being forced to piece together the events to find out why, how and to what legitimacy Lucrezia fears her husband. It’s truly captivating.
O’Farrell is a complete genius for this. I don’t care that the symbolism smacks you in the face; it was so poignant, so powerful, so gorgeously described. It made me actually stop and sit there and think about it even after I put the book down. And that’s everything I want from a book.
Structurally arresting, it plays around with chronology so that the tension is unbearable at times, the reader being forced to piece together the events to find out why, how and to what legitimacy Lucrezia fears her husband. It’s truly captivating.