A review by eslismyjam
The Wish House by Celia Rees

3.0

Atmospheric is certainly the word for this one. Indeed, there is almost nothing but atmosphere here. I kept waiting for something to happen, something to warrant the lengthy descriptions and extreme attention to the most minute details of scenery, but nada. The descriptions are beautiful, poetic and extremely rich in detail, but I felt that it dragged at points. The story was interesting, it took me a minute to get into it, told from the present and flashing back to the 70s when our protagonist was a teenager enthralled with the lovely Clio, but it worked. As others have noted the juxtaposition of descriptions of the works of art at the start of each chapter with the story interwoven added a complexity to the story that I appreciated. But when the final twist came I was left scratching my head. It wasn't much of a twist and it wasn't very exciting. The Rees does such a great job of setting her scene and creating nuanced characters that I expected more. I was sorely disappointed by anti-climatic ending. I listened to audiobook and I have to say the narrator was FANTASTIC. Love a good British narrator. LOVE.