A review by tjgreads
Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

3.0

BITTER ORANGE, by Claire Fuller, reminded me a lot of Sarah Waters’ THE LITTLE STRANGER, but maybe it’s because I just read it and it’s fresh in my mind. Similar creepy, atmospheric English estate house, odd, unloveable trilogy of characters, and an awkward unreliable narrator. I did appreciate the main character’s point of view as an overweight, sort of repressed, invisible kind of spinster-y person. Blatantly uninteresting and kind of a nut. So many novels are written so that we’re meant to root for the narrator, but this one didn’t even try.

I won’t spoil too much because my book club friends are reading this soon, but I have QUESTIONS. Too many storylines left unresolved for me to be satisfied, a bit too slow to crescendo, liked but didn’t love it. Three stars.