kirstenrose22 's review for:

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

4.0

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Um, this is basically a trashy novel from the 18th century. And I have been meaning to read it *forever*. The first part is a very draggy travelogue (establishing our heroine and giving her a boring wussy-boy to fall in love with), the middle part *ROCKS* and then it all kind of goes flat and boring for the final third. I would be reading along and chortling madly, and then a few pages later totally caught up in the suspense of it (one time, at a crucial moment of something being revealed, I actually squeaked aloud). It's very uneven - though, to her credit, things like the traditional way we think of "pacing" for novels just hadn't really come into being yet. The Evil Villain is so ineffectual that he actually lets Our Heroine escape without really seeming to notice or care (thereby rendering him much less scary in my opinion), and then the author kills him off off-stage (as it were) a few chapters later. Um, huh? Also, by the end, she gets all wrapped up in these complicated maneuvers to explain all the creepy mysteries from earlier, most of which make no logical sense. Very uneven, but I'm still glad I read it. Definitely good for a few laughs.