The Woman in White in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 28, 2016 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: romance, era-victorian, mystery, psych-psych-psych, classic, gutenberg, mistaken-identity, genre-blender, 1001-books

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

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Jun 12, 2007 Suvi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: _great-britain, crime-mystery, _book-shelf, gothic, novels, 1800s, _to-reread

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. ...more

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Jul 23, 2008 Elizabeth rated it really liked it

Shelves: england, classics, fiction, englishmajorbooks

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

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Feb 16, 2019 Anie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction, male-protagonist, female-protagonist, male-author, own, mystery, 2019

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.

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Feb 24, 2018 Erica rated it liked it

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 ...more

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