cyndireadsbooks 's review for:

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
4.0

Put this book on my TBR 9/6/2016. It’s taken me over 4 years to get to it!

This was a dark little book. Written in the 60s by a 70+ year old woman and set in Australia in the year 1900. The gothic feeling mystery surrounds the disappearance of three popular girls and a teacher who are on a field trip to Hanging Rock, a brutal mountainous outcrop. There is much more that happens in the rippling aftermath of the event.

It’s presented as a true story (it is not) and that lends to the ominous feel. The description on the back of the Penguin Classic version I have lists the book as reminiscent of “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” “Rebecca,” and “The Virgin Suicides.” I would agree with all three of those in feeling, although I’d associate it most strongly with the last in my mind. Maybe I’d throw in the movie Heavenly Creatures.

I really enjoyed it. It feels much older than it is. I know there is both a movie and a miniseries that have been made. I plan to watch both soon.

I’ve gone back and forth between 4-5 stars. I really liked this a lot but it felt just a little slow in parts. Maybe a little too much of post-recovery Michael and Albert?