The Infamous Gilberts: A Novel

by Angela Tomaski

A Simon & Schuster audiobook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every listener.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Gothic, Historical, Literary Fiction, Adult, British Literature

Audible Audio

First published January 20, 2026

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4+
Thornwalk, is a great manor house in England that housed a mother and her five eccentric children…
Hugo, Lydia, Annabel, Jeremy and Rosalind.
We are taken on a tour of a the manor by a family friend …Maximus, after the last of the living Gilbert children has passed, before a hotelier takes over.
Each short chapter provides more insight of the rooms of the house, the siblings relationships with each other and their outside relationships, and mental health struggles and just general struggles in life.
This is a darkly comic yet increasingly sad.
All the gothic feels.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boo to Scribner for dropping “gothic” “Jackson” and “du Maurier” in to the jacket copy for this one. I loathe copywriters who load up on keywords that really have nothing to do with the book they’re describing. I swear every book published this year has been called gothic.

Ignoring the jacket copy, I absolutely loved what’s between the covers. The book completely clashed with the endless sunshine we’re having at the moment. It’s depressing atmosphere, darkly amusing narration and downward spiral of its characters was the perfect most un-beach read that became a beach read.

I loved the unique way the story is told, as if you’re on a tour of the crumbling estate before all of its history gets erased in the form of a hotel conversion.

Deeply melancholic, it’s Downton Abbey if the estate fell to ruin.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an early peek.

[Erin]

ARC for review. To be published January 20, 2026.

DNF at 20%

I don’t know what ails me. This is maybe my fourth DNF book in about two weeks. Am I just in a mood or am I choosing poorly?

This family saga follows the used-to-be-wealthy Gilbert family, particularly the five children and appears to go up through to their deaths. I think.

Reading this just seemed like a chore to me and each time I left it I didn’t want to go back to it. So, finally, I didn’t. YMMV.

[Haley Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars!

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The conceit of this novel is that a neighbor who addresses the reader as “you” is giving you a tour of a once grand English estate now in severe decline, showing you to different rooms and different objects in them, and through that, telling the story of the extremely messed up family that once lived there.

Sadly this one was a big miss for me. I love crumbling mansions and dysfunctional family novels, but this one was just beyond. The structure of the book is super odd and screams “I’m so literary and quirky” but not in a good way. And the characters are well beyond quirky into mostly extremely unlikeable and unpleasant to read about. Not to mention that the book is utterly devoid of the humor the blurb promises. Depressing and confusing. But I’ll bump it up to 2.5 stars because it didn’t bore me, in fact there was something mesmerizing about it that kept me reading. But would not recommend.

[Dona's Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF @ p25

Pre-Read Notes:

I love stories about what people and families leave behind in a place they have inhabited. Also, that cover was irresistible!

"You are entering through the servants’ hall, as you see. The keys to the rest of the house have already been surrendered to the hotel people, but this one was given to me by Miss Annabel Gilbert herself, and it shall not be relinquished to anyone but her. Since she is dead, that is unlikely to happen." p9

Final Review

(thoughts & recs) Unfortunately, between the unstable POV and all the passive constructions, I am not getting along with the style here.

Thank you to the author Angela Tomaski, publishers Scribner, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of THE INFAMOUS GILBERTS. All views are mine.

[Desiree Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely liked the style. It did remind me of Remains of the Day in its subtlety and the things left unsaid.

None of the characters are very likable, except for maybe Jeremy and Annabel. Jeremy pretty much leaves and never comes back to his kooky family. Annabel is sentimental and sweet, but stymied by some unspecified disability or mental illness.

But we are one step removed, as we hear the tale of the narrator Max as he doles out the family history and secrets in a measured pace, while giving a tour of the home and grounds (to unspecified persons).

The book is a little too subtle, in that English way. Are the oldest brother and Max supposed to be in love? If it was 100 years ago, I would say no they are just good friends. But possibly this is a same-sex relationship. Regardless, the tale ends on a sweet but melancholic note.

-Desiree Reads
January 26, 2026

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This melancholy novel follows the lives of the members of a once-wealthy English family and their home/estate (Thornwalk) from just before WWII to the 2000’s. The novel is narrated by Maximus, a friend of the family, starting after the last of the Gilbert children has died, and Thornwalk is about to become a hotel. Maximus tells the story of the Gilbert family by taking the reader into different rooms of the home to look at different things/items – each of which gives rise to a piece of the Gilbert family history and a chapter in the novel. I thought a tour of rooms and items in a dilapidated grand home was a very appealing structure for narrating the storyline of this kind of novel (but I recognize that others have not liked it).
The Gilbert family consists of a mother and five children/siblings, and the personality and life story of each Gilbert are nicely drawn. The Gilberts are a “typical” family, which means that novel contains a multitude of family issues, including jealousy, taking advantage of parents (for money), taking advantage of “misbehaving” teenage girls (awful), caring for siblings, mental health issues, abandonment, rejection, mismanagement of the family money – and the list goes on! Put all this in a very large house that has fallen into utter disrepair, but in which (and before its sale), many important small and large items remain to be shown and explained to the reader.
This is not a happy family. Romances are thwarted or fail, the family members are unable to cope with changes in the world, poor mental health is rampant, and family members work against each other as much as they support each other. Some reviews point to humor, but, for me, there was very little. I did think it was a wonderful portrayal of both a family and a house in decline, with plenty of intrigue – perfect gothic material.
I highly recommend the audio for this one. The narrator (a contemporary of the Gilbert siblings and hence and old man) made the story come alive for me.

[Niamh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was very kindly given an e-ARC of this book via Netgalley and Penguin Fig Tree.

We're not even one month into the whole year and I might have just found the worst book of it. I will very, very rarely write one-star reviews, but I read the vast majority of this book and considering what it put me through, I'm claiming it as part of my reading tracker this year. Did I like it? No. But let me explain why, so I don't throw a brick at someone. I really do feel like throwing a brick at someone.

Firstly, please ignore the copy on the jacket / Goodreads description of this book. 'Darkly funny' it is not. I struggled to find anything funny about it at all. If anything, it was rather depressing in how quickly it slunk into the stereotype of 'odd rich family with a house falling down around them'. It felt, oftentimes, that the writer was trying to be clever and literary. To have her narrator break the fourth wall (the fourth page?) and show us around this grand house while peppering their tour with a rambling, disjointed history of the family that once lived there. A narrative choice that may have perhaps been better used had the book being discussing generations of Gilberts who had lived there and the things they had seen - a 'Forrest Gump' style-exploration. Moreover, every time said narrator uttered the phrases 'we won't talk about that now' or 'that's coming later' or 'that's for another time', I wanted to commit a minor crime. I had no sense of how that information would come in useful later because I was being bombarded with exposition about these people and their lives.

Speaking of the people. As children, the Gilberts are difficult to distinguish. And even as they got older, I found myself mixing up which one was which and what they had done when they were younger. They are all, of course, deeply unlikeable, but that didn't particularly bother me. What bothered me was just how bland they all were. Each drawn with a heavy-handed brush that seemed to be particularly unpleasant to the women, all of whom at some point appeared to have a mental affliction, be cruel, get abused or assaulted by men, or have terrible things happen to them.

Had I not double-teamed this one with the audiobook, I'd have put it down so much sooner. The pacing is odd, simultaneously dragging its feet and lurching wildly from one moment to the next. I can't help but feel the idea was sound, but the execution was particularly flawed.

[Janereads10 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars

This started slow for me. Pairing it with the audiobook helped the story pick up.

What stood out: The family and the tragedy of what they became over time. The book is told through a narrator's POV as he walks through the old Thornwalk mansion. The setting felt like its own character - I could see it in its glory days and watch how it lost its shine. As the narrator moved through each room, he shared anecdotes of what happened there, connecting to the overall plot.

The story of the Gilberts - the mother and her children - had its funny moments. Like how they convinced one of the sisters to break up with her tutor, or the mother always running to her sister-in-law for help. But it got tragic. The siblings drifted apart, a promising relationship failed. Some siblings got greedy over the family fortune and I wasn't sure how I felt about them. What kept me reading though was finding out who the narrator was.

Audio note: Michael Bertenshaw's narration made it feel like touring a Gothic mansion with a guide sharing stories of the Gilberts.

You'll love this if: You're drawn to novels about families and their complex relationships, or mansion settings that become characters in the story.

Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for the advance copy.

[Megan Deemer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book…. Is like Saltburn meets Winnie the Pooh- only 10x the mental illness and incredibly dull.
If there was one thing this book proved it was that syphilitic insanity was real and passed on from mother to child (or children in this case).
Meet the Gilbert’s, the most mentally insane and boring family there was… the end.
#netgalley #ARC

[lucy is reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

Justice for Annabel, she did nothing wrong

[Erica (Cheekymama2) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had potential but fell short. The book was told in third person. The book begins with Max the neighbor, guiding the reader through the rooms of the Thornwalk House and the hidden stories they contain. Each room and its contents serve as the beginning of a story into the past lives of the five Gilbert siblings.

Unfortunately the story does not flow. I didn't feel like I really got to know any of the characters well. I wish the story had been told by each character instead of someone from the outside.

Thank you NetGalley for an early read of this novel.

[Shantel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so engrossed in this. I loved the writing style and how the narrator retold the stories as you walked throughout the home and grounds, so unique and well done. All the characters were so complex, each with their own identities and not falling into stereotypes. Such a good read! 5 ⭐️

[Toni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely interesting. Couldn’t put it down.

[Trishita (TrishReviews_ByTheBook) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even before the book was in my hands, I was already a little obsessed with its aesthetics. It was described as eccentric, that word by itself is the most irresistible invitation to me. Gathering some of my favourite literary tropes, The Infamous Gilberts unfolds as a family saga centred around sibling drama. The family mansion stands as one of the characters, secrets coiling through its rooms and among its residents, resentments simmer, rivalries sharpen, scandals of all kinds lurk in the background.

The novel gives us a guide, a narrator who opens the mansion’s doors and beckons us inside, pointing out the hidden spots and long-buried messes, admitting us into the intimate orbit of the family, the gullible, dense mother and her five children (with a cameo by a villainous aunt). We meet them first as wild, unguarded children, all petulant in their own way, racing through the years they fracture into lost, flailing adults, moving inexorably toward their ultimate ends. Time goes on, fast for some, slower for others, innocence curdles too soon, the girls are dealt the harshest hands, who does that surprise?
At its heart, this is a story about the fierce love and the inescapable bond between siblings amid the slow disintegration of their way of life. The war comes and goes, the world shifts and their place in it finds itself on shaky ground. Tomaski writes with a light touch, the novel is so immersive, its chapters so engrossing, that I hardly noticed how deeply I’d been drawn in, almost blindsided by the weight it carries. This is a novel that does not easily let go. 3.5 stars!

[Jamad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Angela Tomaski’s The Infamous Gilberts is an ambitious debut, apparently written over more than twenty years while she was working as a waitress, a cleaner, a teacher and a care home activities co-ordinator. That long gestation perhaps explains both its density and its determination to be noticed.

The novel centres on the once-grand Gilbert family and their decaying country house, circling around scandal, memory and the slow unravelling of reputation. We are guided through the house and its history by Maximus Maximus, an extraordinarily intrusive narrator who addresses the reader directly in the second person. He shepherds us from room to room, from past to present, insisting on what we see and how we see it, as family secrets are gradually exposed.

The conceit is clear from the outset:

“You are entering through the servants’ hall, as you see. The keys to the rest of the house have already been surrendered to the hotel people, but this one was given to me by Miss Annabel Gilbert herself, and it shall not be relinquished to anyone but her. Since she is dead, that is unlikely to happen.”

Maximus Maximus does not so much narrate as command. “Let us go outside again,” he says. “Go back up to Annabel’s room and look once more beneath the bed.” He orders us around like an overbearing tour guide determined that we admire every architectural flourish. It is a bold stylistic choice, but over the course of the novel it becomes wearing. Being constantly instructed where to look and what to notice feels less immersive than exhausting.

There are moments when Tomaski’s prose is sharp and atmospheric, and the central idea — of a house as mausoleum, archive and accusation — has real promise. But the cleverness of the structure, and the relentless second-person address, kept me at arm’s length. I admired the effort more than I enjoyed the experience.

An okay read, with flashes of originality, but one that tries so hard to orchestrate the reader’s response that it became tiresome.

[Priscilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blurb for this book begins: "The Remains of the Day meets The Royal Tenenbaums." This debut work of fiction feels definitely more like the former than the latter, with its enigmatic and wistful narrator, Maximus, sharing the history of the Gilbert family and their estate, Thornwalk. It does have a certain dark humor, but by the end I felt a bit gutted (be warned: there's mental illness, intellectual disability, domestic violence, depression, and PTSD).

The story's structure is clever. Maximus--Max--appears as a tour guide, addressing readers directly and beconing us to follow him on a tour of the Thornwalk, the Gilbert family's grand country estate being turned into a luxury hotel. He introduces us to each of the five Gilbert children: Lydia, Hugo, Annabel, Jeremy, and Rosalind, as well as Mrs. Gilbert and various family relations and staff by walking us through the house and around the estate and showing us meaningful objects and locations. The chapters have amusing titles like "A Tuft of Wool," "Where the Clock Was," "The Pine Cone Under Annabel's Bed," and so on. While this is whimsical on the surface, the stories surrounding the objects and places and their meaning to the characters involved often conveys something much darker. If this sounds like a gimmick, it's not. Tomaski has Max move deftly through the house and the surrounding area, telling us what happened to each of the family members over the course of seventy years or so. All of the Gilberts are well-drawn, and we meet each of them time and again through the objects and places indicated by Max, so each one has a chance to come front and center for a short time before taking a back seat to another character. Somehow this structure creates a more complete picture of the characters and their relationship to each other than is Tomaski has opted for a more traditional multi POV structure, giving each character a turn. Tomaski is definitely a writier to watch, if this debut is any indication.

Netgalley provided a copy of this book for review.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This unique book tells the story of the Gilbert siblings from World War II to the early 2000s. The narrative device is clever, using the many rooms and objects of Thornwalk, the family’s estate, to tell their tragic tale. The reader is taken on a tour of sorts, by family friend Maximus, and the second person tense is regularly employed. Smart, witty, funny, and bleak in equal measure, with bite sized chapters. The pace drags slightly and becomes somewhat haphazard in the final stretch, but this is a strong debut.

[Chrissie Whitley · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Review to follow.

[Ygraine]

v elegant, sensitive, quaint little book & a good companion while sick, which i am AGAIN.

[Holly Fairall · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 As soon as I heard about the tone of voice of this novel, I was sold: the setting is Thornwalk Manor, an old house that is about to be turned into a boutique hotel. We are invited inside by a neighbor and family friend of the former residents, Maximus, who proceeds to take us around to each part of the house, telling us about the family who lived there through the empty rooms, leftover objects, and stains. What unfolds is both funny and surprisingly tragic; we see these five children and the lives they end up living, none of which quite measures up to the potential they had through a variety of factors both outside their control and stemming from their own decisions. I was very touched and completely swept up in their stories; I am very curious to see what else this author writes in future.

[Chloe]

Officially DNF-ing this because one of my reading goals this year is to just put down books I'm not enjoying to make more space for books I will enjoy. Sad about this one as I really thought I would love it - comped to The Royal Tenenbaums, one of my fav movies, a story about a dysfunctional family, one of my favourite things....but I just really don't vibe with the narration and how the story is told.

[Brianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book does feel like some wacky, dark Royal Tenenbaums-esque story as the blurb teases. Five siblings’ stories are told, but really it’s the story of their lives within the walls of Thornwalk, their crumbling, once revered home. The third person narrator walks us through the rooms and the memories, literally ushering us through a tour of the home, how it came to have its stains and quirks and hidden treasures, and along the way we learn the stories of Hugo, Jeremy, Rosalind, Annabel, and Lydia. Truthfully, I think I would’ve enjoyed this story more had it not been told by a third person narrator and instead we got to be in the heads of each character and immersed in their stories a little more deeply. It took me a bit to get into it but the story finds its groove about halfway through. I do think this book would make for a good movie or show adaptation to bring it all to life.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Gigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because of a New York Times book review that compared it to a West Anderson film, and I was like “say less.” However, this isn’t a West Anderson film at all, for the exception of the beautiful setting and characters that can be described as zany. However, Anderson characters are often zany with a little bit of hope, the Gilberts are zany with a lot of despair and denial.
Many of the stories were compelling but hard to read. Mrs. Gilbert’s inability to live in reality, prepare her children for adulthood, or protect the from their awful Aunt Beatrice, was beyond frustrating, although when she eventually gets what’s coming to her, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Besides Annabel and Jeremy, all of the Gilberts are horrible, selfish, and cause so much pain to others, I hated them by the end. Besides all this, I did enjoy reading about their horrible lives and downfall, and the narration was stylishly interesting and well done. There is a line about 75% through the story talking about Annabel‘s writing that I felt was a little meta for how one might enjoy the book:
“Feel free to read the entire manuscript, but if you didn’t find the above extract interesting, then perhaps the book is not for you.”

[talia ♡]

as the biggest fan of both salinger and anderson, if you comp ANYTHING the royal tenebaums you better know that i have it preordered

[Carole Tyrrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Infamous Gilberts
It’s 2002 and you’re invited to step inside the rambling, abandoned ‘Thornwalk’ as your guide takes your hand. He knows all there is to know about the family that once lived there, the Wynford Gilberts. The house is about to shed its skin and its memories and become a ‘historic’ hotel. The new owners have already earmarked parts of the estate for their own purposes and soon all traces of the Gilberts will be gone.
The nearby villagers will be glad. They recall Hugo, the oldest boy, falling down drunk in the village pub and the reputations of his other siblings; Lydia, the eldest girl, Annabel, the middle child, Jeremy, the youngest boy and Rosalind the youngest one. Servants came and went until eventually there were none at all.
Maximus is your guide. He knew the family intimately and can show you the little marks and scars on the fabric of the building left by the children. They were fatherless and their mother, Margaret, told them that he is a dead war hero. They discover the truth much later.
They were all such different people with Lydia being a lifelong thief, Rosalind hankering after fame and Annabel ostracised and ignored. Jeremy is the one that wants to escape. Firstly, he tried cutting off the bars on his window and then going away on ‘little disappearances’. Finally, he achieved his aim and vanished completely in 1968 after sending a postcard from Cairo.
There are also the other two local children, Wilfred and Emma Asquill, who live at Belmont with their aristocratic parents. The Gilberts and the Asquills lives will intertwine over the years with disastrous results.
Aunt Beatrice then comes into their lives and decides, or is allowed, to take charge. Lydia and Rosalind are presented at balls and dangled in front of rich old men. She also decides Annabel’s fate with little evidence and cruelties are then visited on her for her own good. Annabel is the outcast of the family.
The Gilberts marry the wrong people and fall in love with the wrong people and this is part of their downfall. They ignore what they really want and go after something else which then goes wrong and leads to disaster. And as the hotel owners wait to move in and obliterate the last traces of the Gilbert Maximus has much, much more to tell……
This is a very visual book as Maximus invites the reader to smell the last vestiges of Lydia’s favourite perfume, lily of the valley, as they still lie in a forgotten bottle and also the things that the children have left behind. Forgotten and dusty trinkets, eviscerated diaries, and a box containing souvenirs from a ball. Disintegrating flowers worn by Lydia and 3 pairs of white shoes worn by the girls. I could see ‘Thornwalk’ so vividly. But is Maximus a reliable narrator? He seems to know a lot about family events when he couldn’t have been there. ‘The Infamous Gilberts’ reminded me of Sarah Waters, ‘The Little Stranger’ with the outsider observing a destructive, dysfunctional family as it descends into oblivion and also ‘Gormenghast’. There was also the sense of a much darker and riotous ‘Sir Henry at Rawlinson End.’ There were several moments that were very poignant especially with Annabel’s fate and the final scenes. There was a lot of humour as well. The book brought on so many emotions while I was reading it.
This was a stunning debut novel - witty, sad, tragic and eccentric. I loved it.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise for this book was alluring. The story of Thornwalk, a country estate, and its resident family, The Gilberts (Mother, five children and oft-visiting over-bearing Aunt) over a period of time spanning from just before the break-out of WW2 till the early 2000s, when Thornwalk has been acquired by a luxury Hotel chain.

So, plenty of scope to get our teeth into all the dramas, secrets and relationships of the family and how it leads to the sale of the estate, right?

Sadly not. The ‘interesting’ choice the author made for the narrative style was bold, but unfortunately for me, didn’t pay off.
It was rather jarring and at times a bit too jumpy between time periods, so a lot of the impact was lost. Also, it just didn’t give me a chance to get a real feel for the characters, so there was a big remove.

Of course, I did keep wondering who the narrator, Maximus, was. I had a couple of theories, but the narrative style was so off-putting that I soon started to feel uninterested in Maximus’ role.

The blurb promised a ‘darkly funny modern Gothic’ - but I don’t feel that either of these were really present.
So, unfortunately, I felt quite disappointed and can’t really get behind this one.

*Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

[Nicola Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some years ago, Angela Tomaski visited a house that had just been bought by the National Trust. She saw slippers and soap belonging to the late owner in his bedroom and by her next visit they had gone, those items so personal to him erased forever. This was the seed of a story that led her to write The Infamous Gilberts.

The Gilberts are siblings Lydia, Hugo, Annabel, Jeremy and Rosalind and their story covers much of the 20th century. In short chapters, vignettes almost, we see the trajectory of their lives at Thornwalk, their gothic family mansion, not through their own reminiscences but through those of Maximus who walks us through life at Thornwalk in the manner of a tour guide (although he’s actually a friend of the family) before it passes into the hands of the hotel chain who have bought it.

It becomes clear there is an element of madness running through the Gilbert siblings, a self-destructive nature that is inescapable. I got to the end and thought they literally had no redeeming features but when I thought about it more I realised that Annabel and Jeremy were at least a little more likeable. The other three didn’t have much going for them but they certainly made interesting reading.

The writing style of The Infamous Gilberts won’t appeal to everyone. It did take a little getting into, the narration being rather matter of fact yet conversational, but I got to a point where I found it difficult to put down. The story itself, of a family’s downfall and extinction, is fascinating and I agree with the author, it’s the small things that feel so incredibly intimate, those stains and scratches, the wedding ring, the blotter by the telephone, all memories of a family and a way of life now lost. I enjoyed this unusual and poignant book.

[Lily Cloud · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book because the cover is gorgeous and the premise sounded right up my alley. A gothic tour of a crumbling mansion with a dysfunctional family seemed like the perfect weekend read. Unfortunately, the execution just did not work for me. Instead of being a fun mystery, it felt like a long walk through a house where I did not want to be.

The biggest issue was the narrative style. The guided tour framing felt clever at first, but quickly became distracting and emotionally distant. Instead of sinking into the story, I always felt held at arm’s length, as if I was being told about events rather than experiencing them. The constant shifts in time and perspective made it harder to stay invested.

I also struggled to connect with any of the Gilbert siblings. I know they were supposed to be eccentric and infamous, but they mostly just came across as selfish and annoying. It is hard to stay invested in a story when you do not actually like or care about what happens to any of the characters. By the time the big secrets were revealed, I was too frustrated with their behavior to feel any real sympathy for them.

The tone was another mismatch for me. I went in expecting sharper dark humor and more bite, but the book leaned heavily toward melancholy. It wasn’t bad, just heavier and flatter than I hoped, and the sadness often felt repetitive instead of revelatory.

Overall, this was a disappointing read that did not live up to the hype for me. While the writing is technically good and the atmosphere is thick, the lack of likable characters and the crawling pace made it a chore to finish. I can see why critics might enjoy the literary style, but as a casual reader, nope. I would not recommend this unless you really love slow-burn stories where everyone is miserable.