A review by bashsbooks
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

challenging emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

4.25

Continued my Brontë read-through with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and I have to say, Anne Brontë really stepped up her authorial game with this one - it's leagues better than Agnes Gray. I've decided that the quality of Brontë novels are proportional to how scandalous the book was considered at the time of publication. This, of course, means that Wuthering Heights still tops the charts, but The Tenant of Wildfell Hall edges out Jane Eyre, with the main character literally running away from her husband yet being seen in a sympathetic light the whole time. Also, I appreciated Helen's "brazen coldness," and I need more of these mid-1800s ladies to lock in on that front. 

I'm not entirely sure why this is an epistolary novel, because it didn't really have to be. I liked Helen's diary as a narrative device, but I wasn't keen on GIlbert Markham and his letters - though I understand she had to end up married to a "good" man, I wasn't particularly fond of any of the male characters. That's at least half the point, I know, but I'm from the 21st century so I feel like we could've gone harder. 

Also, I was not keen on this narrator. She didn't do anything particularly wrong (in fact, she did a good job distinguishing between the characters in her narration of dialogue), but my brain didn't jive with her voice. If there was another unabridged version free on Spotify, I'd have listened to that one instead, but alas.
 
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