A review by kschmoldt
Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue

3.0

This book was okay. The writing was wonderful and I can't see how Emma Donoghue could be any better. That said, I found the story distasteful and the entire character of Mary Saunders to be vastly unredeeming. There really is nothing to like about her. She's a horrible person. She doesn't fall under what I would consider to be evil, as she doesn't set out to hurt anyone on purpose, but she is completely selfish and ungrateful. It was possible to feel a little sorry for Mary as the book begins - she's simply a young girl who wants more for herself than the times she lives in will allow. She makes a bad decision, and that forces her to turn to prostitution. Perhaps it's the life of a prostitute that turns Mary to the "dark side". The first half of the book was superior to the second half, but it's worth reading if you like historical fiction and you've run out of other books to read but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.