Tag: Book Reviews

You know that feel of wanting to devour a book? Of wanting to put off everything – work, sleep, food – in order to just have a few more minutes to read a few more pages? This was what Sarah Water’s Fingersmith was to me.

It is edgy Victorian. A darker version of a British Annie. A novel for a female Dickins. And, it is delightful.

Seventeen year old Susan Trinder has been raised in a house of thieves by Mrs. Sucksby, who often takes in orphans. Unlike other orphans, Sue has been doted on her whole life. When Mr. Rivers, or the Gentleman as Sue knows the frequent visitor, arrives at the house late one evening, the story begins – or so Sue says.

I would venture to guess that of those who have read this book, Owen Meany would make a top 10 list of memorable characters.

While WG Sebald’s Austerlitz won’t be among the top five favorite reads of 2010, it will be among the top books that I’m glad I read. Using stream-of-consciousness narrative, Austerlitz is the title character’s story as he tells it to an unnamed, first-person recorder. And while this style isn’t my favorite, it is profoundly appropriate in this instance.

As soon as I read the first line of Elizabeth Strout’s Amy and Isabelle, I knew I had been here before. But, the familiar sense was inviting so I kept reading, and the revisit was well worth it.