A review by jessicaxmaria
East Lynne by Mrs. Henry Wood

2.0

Generally, a terrible book. But kind of fascinating? I mean... mostly quite predictable (duh, that awful cad Levison who stole away Lady Isabel is also the murderer who framed Richard Hare! It just took 800 pages to get there...)... but this reads like some moral soap opera for those times. The Lady Isabel decides to run away because a somewhat hot dude was like "hey, your husband's cheating on you I bet," and then because obvs she made the wrong move, she's suddenly the saddest person on the planet, pregnant with the cad's baby, deserted by said cad, and then in a horrible train accident that kills the baby and leaves her disfigured. Everybody thinks she's dead and then she tortures herself by disguising as a governess to be with her kids. And the last part of the book is just a bunch of "isn't this crazy? That she has to witness all this? But don't forget, she made the worst mistake a woman could make and now she's paying for it." COOL.


Also, Miss Corny is the worst. I'm so glad I don't have to read about her again. The fact that Isabel exonerates her in the end for not being part of the reason she was driven out was total bullshit.


You know, totally low-brow fun.