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tinyjude's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
3.75
In some senses, it does a great job at giving depth both to Bertha's character and background, and Mr. Rochester's feelings about her (which I did not expect to find here), as well as the racial complexities in Jamaica after the end of "legal slave ownership" (we know it was still being enacted nonetheless), colourism, women's autonomy and the treatment of (women's) madness and how these poor women are driven into these unstable mental states by their environments, and mostly their husbands.
But it was also confusing in a lot of instances and felt short when depicting more the nuance of the black characters' feelings towards their previous slave owners. I wish we had focused more on them in general, than the white Creole perspective, but I understand Rhys' background and how that shaped this re-imagining of Bertha's story. Still, I think it should be an essential read after Jane Eyre because it adds more depth to her character and a more complex post-colonial context than the original book did.
Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Forced institutionalization, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation
Moderate: Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Trafficking, and Classism
edwardian_girl_next_door's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Confinement, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism
Moderate: Animal death, Infidelity, Physical abuse, and Violence
Minor: Gaslighting
edesia_guest's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Confinement, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Abandonment, and Colonisation
yozhik's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, and Colonisation
angelicathebookworm's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I found Rhys’ prose in this particular text quite disjointed and confusing. There were quite a few times where I found myself stopping and having to re-read a sentence several times to be able to understand it which I found quite jarring. Rhys seems to have created a disorientating feeling through the prose quite possibly to emphasize Antoinette’s descent into madness through the inclusion of dreams, nightmares, incomplete sentences, and a blurring of different first-person voices. While I understand and appreciate why Rhys does this, it isn’t the kind of writing style I enjoy normally. One of my biggest criticisms with this novel is the inclusion of first-person narration from Rochester. It’s very apparent that he’s an unreliable narrator and so we don’t get to view him as the antagonist that Antoinette sees because that would never be his own view. I think I would have much preferred it if it were written entirely in Antoinette’s voice. Overall, I quite liked themes that Rhys explored and the meanings behind the text but execution, at least for me, is not one that appeals to me.
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Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, and Racism