Reviews

I didn't find the main character, Rachel, believable. I haven't known anyone who has consistently flubbed social interactions so badly and not been aware of it to some degree - that's not really how it works. I get the idea the author wrote about an odd woman he vaguely knew, whose internal life he knew nothing about but imagined as mean-spiritedly as possible. Predicable ending.

ijb2412's review against another edition

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funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

readinkedfairy's review against another edition

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challenging funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I too would like to go mad in a mansion in Bristol whilst having a romance with a portrait of a man who died before i was born.

kathieboucher's review against another edition

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5.0

I'm a sucker for unreliable narrator books, and Rachel Waring careens around in the highest of upper echelons of unreliability. I love an author quietly setting the scene of madness--a jarring word here and there, and what appears in the beginning as social awkwardness and an inability to read people and their social cues ends up escalating in alarming ways. Masterful writing.

The entire story is told in Rachel's head, so it's a bit of a challenge to separate the real from the fantasy. It's hard for me to understand if/why Roger and Celia ever entertained the idea of moving in with her. Some readers feel they were using her from the beginning. Not sure about that. If I were in their situation, my strongest instinct would have been to run away very very fast. The episode near the end with Roger--did any of that even happen? And does anyone else share my curiosity about just how Rachel's mother died?

fromtheyellowchair's review against another edition

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funny mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

amycrea's review against another edition

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3.0

I would have given this a higher rating given the wonderfully unreliable narrator, but the ending just didn't quite work for me.

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