A review by ergative
Cold Comfort Farm (Unabridged) by Stella Gibbons

2.5

 To be honest, the foreword was the funniest part of this book. I say that not to be snarky--it was a charming, delightful foreword--but as a way to indicate my disappointment that the book did not live up to its preface. It's a sort of country gothic book, or rather a book that engages with the tropes of the country gothic brooding mystery--an unhappy house, full of odd, strange folk, all languishing under the thumb of a half-mad, hidden, uncommunicative matriarch who holds the secrets of our young heroine being closed lips. But the young heroine has no patience with gothic broodiness, and sets about bundling off the various strange people into settings where they'd be happier than they are in the gloomy farm, and everything ends with weddings and flowers. The whole book felt as if it was engaging with a humor and literary Discourse that I am either entirely unfamiliar with (although I did recognize the tropes easily enough), or else am just not interested in. But I'll probably watch the adaptation of it, because it has a superb cast.