A review by jen_e_fer
The Hunters by Claire Messud

4.0

This was a book of two novellas. The first novella was A Simple Tale, about a Ukrainian widow that immigrated to Canada after WWII. The second novella was The Hunters was about an American woman spending a summer in Kilburn, England. The first novella was interesting because it went through the main character's (Maria) life; her difficulties with her clients as a cleaning lady and unhappiness with her daughter in law. The second second novella was slower in the beginning but I ended up enjoying the main character's (unnamed this time) observations about her neighbor. That character had gone to England to write a book and probably assumed that her neighbors would be standoffish because that is a stereotype of the British people. Her neighbor, Ridley, ended up being friendly but the main character found her intrusive.

Both novellas were well written. I liked both stories because the characters seemed like ordinary people that you might run into in daily life and wonder what their lives were like.