Published: August 2014
Publisher: Virago
Format: eBook
The Paying Guests was provided by the publisher in return for an honest review
Im starting to think that Fingersmith was a fluke. It's one of my favorite books of all time yet any book by Waters that I've read since hasn't even come close to its magnificence.
The Paying Guests was just downright boring. Francis and her mother decide that they should rent out rooms in their house to earn extra money. Enter Lillian and Leonard barber.
Que pages and pages of mundane badly written day to day activities that add nothing to the overall story. Because there is no over all story. Not one that needed over 570 pages to tell anyway.
Then something does finally happen at around the 70% mark. The only problem is it's so utterly predicable. If you've read even one Sarah Waters novel before then you'll know whats going to happen.
It also wasn't really believable because she spends so much of the book describing mundane details rather than building relationships between the characters.
I agree with other reviewers who say that this book needed a better editor but I don't think that would have saved it either. The story just wasn't up to par either. It may have been novella worthy but that's about it
The Paying Guests was just downright boring. Francis and her mother decide that they should rent out rooms in their house to earn extra money. Enter Lillian and Leonard barber.
Que pages and pages of mundane badly written day to day activities that add nothing to the overall story. Because there is no over all story. Not one that needed over 570 pages to tell anyway.
Then something does finally happen at around the 70% mark. The only problem is it's so utterly predicable. If you've read even one Sarah Waters novel before then you'll know whats going to happen.
It also wasn't really believable because she spends so much of the book describing mundane details rather than building relationships between the characters.
I agree with other reviewers who say that this book needed a better editor but I don't think that would have saved it either. The story just wasn't up to par either. It may have been novella worthy but that's about it
Rating:
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
I was intrigued by the cover art, but will now give the book a miss!
ReplyDeleteToo bad. I loved Fingersmith, and also The Little Stranger. I listened to both on audio, and tend to be more patient with longer books that way. I'll probably do the same with this one.
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