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Jan 28, 2016
Nadine in NY Jones
rated it
it was ok
Shelves:
romance,
mystery,
classic,
gutenberg,
era-victorian,
mistaken-identity,
genre-blender,
1001-books,
psych-psych-psych
I did not really enjoy my time spent reading this bloated mystery/romance. I can appreciate that it was groundbreaking in its time, but I didn't need to be reading it now in my time.
There are so many great reviews about how fun this story is, I expected some masterful plotting with a big, shocking payoff. But what I've gotten is a great big pile of melodramatic twaddle centered around a heroine who is TSTL. Geez Laura, show that you actually have two brain cells, show some backbone, stand up fo ...more
There are so many great reviews about how fun this story is, I expected some masterful plotting with a big, shocking payoff. But what I've gotten is a great big pile of melodramatic twaddle centered around a heroine who is TSTL. Geez Laura, show that you actually have two brain cells, show some backbone, stand up fo ...more

Although I didn't feel entirely bored while reading I think I had another kind of idea what the book would be. Maybe my expectations were too high. I did, however, find the voices of different characters very pleasing. The way their testimonies were written revealed their personality really well and it was impossible to get mixed up. The build up of the plot was also interesting yet not very surprising.
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Well...I finally finished this novel. It felt like it took forever, particularly because it got so scary that I needed a little break from time to time.
All in all, I was pleased with it. I enjoyed the colorful parade of narrators that take turns moving the story forward and I think that Collins, in classic Victorian verbosity, can spin a decent yarn.
Apparently this is considered to be the world's first suspense novel and Wilkie Collins was a contemporary and friend of Dickens. Collins was also ...more
All in all, I was pleased with it. I enjoyed the colorful parade of narrators that take turns moving the story forward and I think that Collins, in classic Victorian verbosity, can spin a decent yarn.
Apparently this is considered to be the world's first suspense novel and Wilkie Collins was a contemporary and friend of Dickens. Collins was also ...more

A suspenseful, consuming novel of deception, intrigue, and trickery. The prose is long-winded, as befits an old serial classic, and it is every inch a Victorian novel - and it is superb.

So I loved the first third of this book. I also love the epistolary style. And of course, Collins' invention of the mystery novel is on full display here. But it was just so dang long and unnecessarily complicated. I almost gave up several times. Still, I'm glad I stuck with it. Not sure whether I'll pick up any other Collins. If it was extremely beautiful prose, it would have passed the time more easily. But it wasn't lofty, nor very interesting, in verbal content. The characters were well draw
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Jun 14, 2009
Isabel
added it

Aug 20, 2009
Vesra (When She Reads)
added it
Shelves:
horror,
e-book,
w,
author-c,
fiction,
classics,
mystery-thrillers,
pub-penguin,
pc-600-699,
tbr-2012

Nov 11, 2009
Doina
marked it as to-read


Jan 05, 2013
Jen
marked it as to-read

Aug 08, 2013
Sivan
marked it as to-read

Dec 03, 2014
Lisa Rosen
marked it as to-read