Review: Rebecca

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It isn’t easy to review this book. I have been a long-time fan of the Hitchcock movie “Rebecca” with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, and also very much liked the mini-series version with Emilia Fox and Charles Dance. Hence, this book has been on my wishlist for years and was very keen on reading it when I first started.

But, then everything went wrong… ***From this point forward, the review may contain spoilers; so, proceed with care.*** (view spoiler)[I hated Maxim de Winter who treated his second wife as a child or a dog as the wife narrating the story rightly observes. Even worse he repeatedly humiliates his wife in front of other people and the servants. However, I was also annoyed by the second Mrs de Winter (her name is not revealed in the book, suggesting thereby that her existence is almost irrelevant) who indeed behaved like a child and loved her monster of husband despite his awful behaviour. For example, Maxim de Winter has not even thought about apologizing by his wife for assuming she did something on purpose (see the fancy dress ball) which she obviously did not. And she kept thinking it was all her fault when it clearly was not. The whole marriage was indeed a failure as, again, the narrator herself clearly observed: they were no partners in anything (very likely not even in sex), communication was practically non-existent between them. Because of this the second Mrs de Winter was living in a world of daydreams, where all the communication and events were only happening in her imagination. The only normal person was Frank, the agent of de Winter with whom she had more communication than with her own husband. I was about 2/3 into the book when I felt a real annoyance – wanted to slap the husband and shake the wife – and also a kind of anxiety, which did not let me sleep at night, and was seriously considering giving up. But I continued…

And then came the turn of the events when we find out about Rebecca’s real personality and what happened on the day she died. From this point forward, their relationship seems to improve, not that it made me any happier, because suddenly, I realized that the story is irreconcilable with my own moral compass. Thus, I finished the book with a very heavy heart and was also very annoyed by its ending. The book begins with a prologue which implies many things that happened in the end; still, the ending was very abrupt and did not answer a lot of questions I had: What happened to the servants and especially, to dear Jasper? Why don’t they have any children? Is Mr de Winter blind now? If yes, how did it come about? And if no, how comes that Mrs de Winter reads aloud a lot?

In the end, I was pretty disappointed and also astonished how I could have loved this story. Thankfully, my edition contained an afterword by Sally Beauman who explained that the story can be read in two ways: as a romantic story and as a story about two women’s fight against patriarchal power. Hitchcock but also the mini-series clearly went with the first approach. Hitchcock even changed the events of the day Rebecca died because he knew the original story would have been unpopular. Though the miniseries is truer to the book, it also romanticizes the love between these two people. Upon reading Beauman’s explanations of the second approach, I must say that that way of reading this book is how I read it this time. Thus, even though this book was inspired by the story of Jane Eyre, for me, Rebecca is, in contrast to Brontë’s novel, not a romantic novel, it is the tragic story of a young woman who is and will never be more than “the paid companion to a petty tyrant” – be it Mrs Van Hopper or her husband. (hide spoiler)] Being a hopeless romantic as I am, I have no desire to read this story ever again.

For all the above reasons, I could give this book one star, if I only based my rating on the story itself. However, I thought the writing itself was excellent – five stars. So, based on these two ratings the average or my final rating is three stars.


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Review: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondō
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first book by Marie Kondō, in contrast to Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up, is not illustrated; thus, it may not appeal to everyone. However, I think it’s very important that you read this one first. Many people think Konmari’s method is just about folding or it’s about minimalism. Neither of this is true. I am member of a group on Facebook where we share ideas of cleaning and organizing the household, and just the other day, someone asked for help because she had loads of clothes and despite folding them à la Konmari she was unable to store all those clothes. She also asked how you can decide what to keep and what not. The simple answer to these questions is: read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. You may not agree with all of her ideas in the end, but probably it will help you to understand that it doesn’t make sense to organize things that don’t spark joy and just litter your household. First, you must decide what you want to keep. Folding only helps to store those items in a practical and attractive way. (By the way, if you want, you can also hang your clothes, Marie doesn’t say it’s forbidden…) And as to the second question, namely, how to decide what to keep: keep everything that sparks joy. If you read the book you will see that – contrary to the presumptions made by many people who probably haven’t read or did not understand the book – Marie does not want you to become a minimalist per se. If your stamp collection sparks joy, keep it, but store it in a way that you may enjoy it. Is there a T-shirt that sparks joy within you for some reason, keep it, even if you are never ever going to wear it. And so on… Truth to be told, I have always been someone who got rid of clutter and preferred order over chaos and cleanliness over filth. Still, this book was able to change my perspective and provided me with a new approach especially with respect to treating other people’s messiness in your household. In my opinion, this book is indeed a very worthwhile reading. Hence my rating: 4 stars.

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Review: Clockwork Prince

Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second part of The Infernal Devices trilogy I found much less exciting than the first part. In fact, I sometimes found that the story dragged, sometimes I found it annoying. The whole book is mainly about finding out where the Magister is hiding, but even at the end, we have not even a vague idea about it. We also do not find out much about Tessa’s origins; though, at least there are some clues about it. The identity of the traitor was not very surprising, even though I thought that in light of the events of the previous book, it was not entirely plausible. What I liked was the story of Will and how Magnus, the warlock helps him and cares for him. I also highly disliked the whole love triangle. I am afraid, I am no fan of those anyway, but this was even less plausible than any other. (view spoiler)[In my opinion, it was pretty clear who Tessa preferred, her decision was simply an act of kindness, or rather pity. One may argue that the steamy scene proved it otherwise, but sometimes people want to have sex with someone, because that person is available, while the other person who they really feel the desire for is not. It was also telling that upon their engagement Tessa kept repeating to herself that she loved Jem. The thing is, I would not wish a partner who does not love one wholeheartedly on anybody. As harsh or hurting the reality may be, I think it’s better to know the truth. (hide spoiler)] Despite these issues, I still liked the main story, the literary references, and the characters (especially Henry and Charlotte), and was keen on continuing with the story, which is why I am giving it 4 stars.

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Review: A Pocket Full of Rye

A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another favourite A.C. book for me. I have read it umpteen times and watched the miniseries with Joan Hickson also innumerable times. This is so good. If you read it the first time, you will see, it is not that easy to find out who the very cruel murderer is. Although of course, Miss Marple solves the case brilliantly. By contrast to many other crime novels by A.C., in this there is no romance. There is a touch of sadness to the whole book, as the murderer is the worst kind of human being and the solution of the case will bring a very kind person a great heartache. Not for nothing ends the book as follows: “The tears rose in Miss Marple’s eyes. Succeeding pity, there came anger – anger against a heartless killer.” Finally, a note on the narration: Joan Hickson was the perfect choice, nobody can hold a candle to her portrayal of Miss Marple. However, if you are a non-native speaker, you may encounter difficulties with understanding her: she sometimes reads very quickly and does not articulate very clearly.

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Review: Her Royal Spyness

Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book reminded me strongly of Agatha Christie’s The Secret of Chimneys, The Seven Dials Mystery, and Why Didn't They Ask Evans?. The basic recipe is as follows: set the story in the 1920s–1930s; have a young heroine who is top-drawer, aka a Lady, but doesn’t necessarily follows the strict rules for nobility; throw in a couple of handsome men for good measure, and of course, you must add some dead body too. Then let the Lady become an amateur sleuth and find the murderer and the king of her heart. Do not forget to “flavour” your story with a dash of humour. If you do it correctly, your readers will have as much fun as I had reading this. I laughed out loud many times while reading this, despite the fact that the historical background is the era of great depression and the heroine, though a Lady, does not have enough food to eat. As for the murder, having been “trained” by reading A.C.’s complete oeuvres more than once, the person of the murderer was not a big surprise for me and the clues were easy to recognize; nonetheless, I enjoyed this whodunnit, even if it can’t hold a candle to the above-mentioned books by A.C. (hence my rating: 4 stars). All in all, this book, which is the first part of a series, made me keen on reading the next books and finding out more about Lady Georgiana Rannoch’s fate.

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Review: Bringing Down the Duke

Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I agree with other reviewers, this book reminds one of Jane Austen’s books; however, it is set in the Victorian era (hence more modern), the difference in social class between the hero and the heroine is much bigger, and it is much more steamier…

I liked the witty heroine (who goes to university, is a suffragist and a single woman by choice) and the handsome, proud (and of course misunderstood), but also very witty and passionate hero. Being a political scientist and having written a doctoral thesis on two female political thinkers, I also very much liked the setting and the backdrop of the suffragist movement, as well as the heroine’s interest in politics and political thought. I found the other characters similarly likeable and am looking forward to reading more about them in the forthcoming book, A Rogue of One's Own.

The love story was very charming and if you like Cinderella stories (or Pretty Woman) than you will be satisfied. Even though I know that throughout British history there had been aristocrats who married commoners, but while reading the book, I sometimes could not get rid of the feeling that its ending will be very unlikely. The social gap was extremely big, in my opinion.

The other issue I had with the book was the degree of steaminess. If you are more conservative or sensitive in this regard, you may want to skip a couple of pages because it contains very explicit descriptions of sexual activities. Remember Colin Firth coming out from the lake in P&P fully clothed? Or when he went fencing to divert his thoughts of Lizzy? If you found those scenes steamy, you should prepare yourself for this book, because here you will have a fully naked “Darcy” doing things and will also know his deepest (most sexual) thoughts. The same applies to “Lizzy”. I do not consider myself prude, but it surprised me, because I was prepared for a more “proper” romance given the topic and the era. Sometimes the genre historical romance can be very misleading because it may contain books like this, but also books for example by Sarah E. Ladd without any explicit sex scenes. I am not sure, but I think this story could have worked without the sex scenes equally well, the sexual tension was well built and had been enough. For this reason, I am giving it 4 stars only.


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Review: The Clocks

The Clocks by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my favourite Christie's. First, I love Poirot's brilliance: he solves the case from his armchair (this also means, he stays in the background for the majority of the novel, but this was no issue for me). Second, I love spy stories, and this is one of those. Third, I love those Christie novels which also contain a romance. This one does and a love-at-first-sight kind, which is one of my favourites. Fourth, I like the reference to dogs in this book. As Poirot says, “it was not necessary to be the foxhound, the bloodhound, the tracking dog, running to and fro upon the scent. But I will admit that for the chase a dog is necessary. A retriever, my friend. A good retriever.” Finally, I really loved Hugh Fraser’s narration: he is not only the perfect choice as Poirot’s friend, Hastings, but also because he has a wonderfully smooth voice and can also imitate the voice of women pretty well.

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