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A review by hannahstohelit
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
4.5
I love reading old books and thinking you know what they're going to be like and they totally aren't! Like, I'd never have thought that the Woman in White wasn't Laura Fairlie.
This was really fun, and while I think I liked The Moonstone more just because there was more variety and creativity of side characters and subplots, this was a really great and surprisingly fast read (by the end I wasn't 100% sure what about the story needed 600 pages to tell it in but I enjoyed all 600 of em). I find it fascinating that Collins- who is just a fucking fantastic writer- mentions that he believes that all good books with good plots create good characters as a result, when in fact that's not the case and he was just preternaturally good at it. Do Walter and Laura inherently have much distinguishing personality? Hard to say. Are they still really compelling in his hands? I think so, though of course Marian Holcombe is even more so. And while the villainy wasn't what I'd imagined it would be either, it felt both more human and in that way more insidious as depicted, through the characters of two quite differently evil men.
Is the ending a bit ridiculous? Yes, but so is the ending of The Moonstone, so maybe that's just Collins. But who cares, the whole thing was a complete pleasure.
This was really fun, and while I think I liked The Moonstone more just because there was more variety and creativity of side characters and subplots, this was a really great and surprisingly fast read (by the end I wasn't 100% sure what about the story needed 600 pages to tell it in but I enjoyed all 600 of em). I find it fascinating that Collins- who is just a fucking fantastic writer- mentions that he believes that all good books with good plots create good characters as a result, when in fact that's not the case and he was just preternaturally good at it. Do Walter and Laura inherently have much distinguishing personality? Hard to say. Are they still really compelling in his hands? I think so, though of course Marian Holcombe is even more so. And while the villainy wasn't what I'd imagined it would be either, it felt both more human and in that way more insidious as depicted, through the characters of two quite differently evil men.
Is the ending a bit ridiculous? Yes, but so is the ending of The Moonstone, so maybe that's just Collins. But who cares, the whole thing was a complete pleasure.