A review by itsmattyfingsmokes
Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

lots of thoughts. of course, since it's daphne du fucking maurier, the writing is INCREDIBLE. i truly dont know how she does it. she writes in a way that fully immerses you in the story, and even if you cant picture the setting exactly, you can FEEL it. no thoughts, just pure vibes. i think that's what i liked most about this - the eerie, foreboding, dark, cold, mysterious atmosphere that she set up and drew me into. 

this was definitely a lot darker than Rebecca had been. where Rebecca had been slow-paced, and had eerie undercurrent, this was more in-your-face, creepy, fucked up shit is happening right now and you're in the middle of it. I liked that Mary had a personality and stood up for herself and others. 

My main problem with this book is that (1) it's marketed as a romance, and (2) it WAS a romance. If Mary falling in love with Jem had been solely for the sake of furthering the plot, and to show how one could fall in love with a Merlyn, and how dangerously lovable they could be, and how pitiable then the reader could look at Patience, then that would have been perfect. that is, in my opinion, how it should have been. but at the end of the book, Mary just suddenly gives in to everything that she has been fighting throughout the book and just... goes off with him? after pages and pages of her longing after her hometown, and all of his callous and sexist remarks, and how much she saw his brother in him, she just GOES WITH HIM?? IM SO MAD. When this happened in Rebecca, i accepted it because it was used to show how naive and impressionable the main character was. but MARY KNEW BETTER. MARY KNEW BETTER!!


I liked that du Maurier kind of personified the inn a bit. when Mary is standing inside it for the last time, it says, "She felt now that this was what Jamacia Inn had always waited for and feared. The damp walls, the creaking boards, the whispers in the air, and the footsteps that had no name: these were the warnings of a house that had felt itself long threatened." GAH so good 

i also wasnt 100% satisfied with the big reveal at the end where the vicar dude was actually the mastermind behind it all and the one who had killed Joss and Patience. i honestly really had wanted Patience to be the one who had killed Joss, as kind of a fuck you for all the shit he had put her through. but no. she died alone and ignorant, just as she had lived. i hate that.


im so excited to read more of du Maurier's work. it is so good every time. i just have a love-hate relationship w this one bc of the romance. i will probably not be rereading. but the vibes were truly immaculate.
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