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Burial Rites

Hannah Kent

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Jun 15, 2018 Linda Martin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, law, fiction, mysteries, gaaaaaah, crime, romance, 2018, geo-iceland

Suspense! I couldn't help but sympathize with the character of Agnes, the woman accused of murder and condemned to die. I don't know if Hannah Kent's rendition of her life was entirely accurate, but the way the book is written, Agnes is a wholly human, feminine, tragic character entrapped by the need for love, which was sadly missing in her life.

The author did take care to study the true-life events of Agnes' life. She strove for accuracy by exploring Iceland's historic records regarding the cr ...more

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Oct 09, 2018 Lindsey Z rated it liked it

*3.5 stars*
I was impressed with Kent’s ability to take on the time period and place of 19th century Iceland and write so authentically about it. I was intrigued by the main character, particularly the latter part of the story in which she finally gets to tell the story of what really happened, from her perspective at least. The tensions created from a local farming family having to house a convicted murderer as she awaits her execution were palpable. This story is slow moving and there was proba ...more

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Apr 18, 2022 Johanne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2022-books

This is a good book, although it’s exceedingly grim. Some have called it “atmospheric” and that’s part of it - the snow, the smoke from dung and peat fires, the dirt, the dark … but it’s more than that. The unrelenting cruelty that Agnes experiences is pretty hard to take at some points. It’s a very bleak book.

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