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3.14 AVERAGE
3.14 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i cant even begin to explain how amusing daphne du maurier is as a writer. i was challenged by the slow pace of this book (i almost dnf-ed it), but after getting to the second half, it made me realize that some books are not meant to be rushed. richard is a very complicated character but the themes presented in this book were written well that i had chills upon realizing that a woman had written this. the book is incredible!
Getting into this book took some time as the protagonist is rather insufferable. And it’s certainly not du Maurier’s finest, but that’s to be expected. She’s still a young author testing her voice. Nevertheless, it holds the promise of her more mature talent. The real strength of the novel is in capturing the insufferable selfishness and facile intensity of youth-untested.
Daphne du Maurier is a very good writer. I underlined multiple sentences in this book, there were some profound paragraphs and I loved her descriptions of landscapes and city scenes. However she wasted her writing on one of the most unlikeable protagonists I have ever encountered.
Richard is an entitled young man with a difficult relationship with his absent father, (and thus with his own masculinity). Richard is self-obsessed, contantly anxious about everything, unable to make a decision or to care for himself thus always depending on people around him, without actually caring about these people aside from what they can do for him. He has the emotional depth and the emotional intelligence of a potato and his only character development is that he comes to care even less about anything other than his own comfort. Richard is thus also an incredible realistic character. I think we have all met a guy like him. The problem is that if you meet a guy like him, you would go and look for an excuse to leave the conversation quickly. Every single time Richard opened his mouth in this novel I felt secondhand embarasment. That he is unlikeable is okay, but the fact that he is shallow and boring made the novel feel shallow and boring.
The lesson for me here is that I should indeed never judge a book based on the cover. I wanted a sea adventure and got 300 pages of this man whining about his father, about girls while in a definitely homoerotic friendship with another man, and about the Paris girlfriend he found through stalkerish behaviour.
Richard is an entitled young man with a difficult relationship with his absent father, (and thus with his own masculinity). Richard is self-obsessed, contantly anxious about everything, unable to make a decision or to care for himself thus always depending on people around him, without actually caring about these people aside from what they can do for him. He has the emotional depth and the emotional intelligence of a potato and his only character development is that he comes to care even less about anything other than his own comfort. Richard is thus also an incredible realistic character. I think we have all met a guy like him. The problem is that if you meet a guy like him, you would go and look for an excuse to leave the conversation quickly. Every single time Richard opened his mouth in this novel I felt secondhand embarasment. That he is unlikeable is okay, but the fact that he is shallow and boring made the novel feel shallow and boring.
The lesson for me here is that I should indeed never judge a book based on the cover. I wanted a sea adventure and got 300 pages of this man whining about his father, about girls while in a definitely homoerotic friendship with another man, and about the Paris girlfriend he found through stalkerish behaviour.
Daphne du Maurier is a very good writer. I underlined multiple sentences in this book, there were some profound paragraphs and I loved her descriptions of landscapes and city scenes. However she wasted her writing on one of the most unlikeable protagonists I have ever encountered.
Richard is an entitled young man with a difficult relationship with his absent father, (and thus with his own masculinity). Richard is self-obsessed, contantly anxious about everything, unable to make a decision or to care for himself thus always depending on people around him, without actually caring about these people aside from what they can do for him. He has the emotional depth and the emotional intelligence of a potato and his only character development is that he comes to care even less about anything other than his own comfort. Richard is thus also an incredible realistic character. I think we have all met a guy like him. The problem is that if you meet a guy like him, you would go and look for an excuse to leave the conversation quickly. Every single time Richard opened his mouth in this novel I felt secondhand embarasment. That he is unlikeable is okay, but the fact that he is shallow and boring made the novel feel shallow and boring.
The lesson for me here is that I should indeed never judge a book based on the cover. I wanted a sea adventure and got 300 pages of this man whining about his father, about girls while in a definitely homoerotic friendship with another man, and about the Paris girlfriend he found through stalkerish behaviour.
Richard is an entitled young man with a difficult relationship with his absent father, (and thus with his own masculinity). Richard is self-obsessed, contantly anxious about everything, unable to make a decision or to care for himself thus always depending on people around him, without actually caring about these people aside from what they can do for him. He has the emotional depth and the emotional intelligence of a potato and his only character development is that he comes to care even less about anything other than his own comfort. Richard is thus also an incredible realistic character. I think we have all met a guy like him. The problem is that if you meet a guy like him, you would go and look for an excuse to leave the conversation quickly. Every single time Richard opened his mouth in this novel I felt secondhand embarasment. That he is unlikeable is okay, but the fact that he is shallow and boring made the novel feel shallow and boring.
The lesson for me here is that I should indeed never judge a book based on the cover. I wanted a sea adventure and got 300 pages of this man whining about his father, about girls while in a definitely homoerotic friendship with another man, and about the Paris girlfriend he found through stalkerish behaviour.
While it pains me a little to rate a book by the author of Rebecca two stars, I know I’m not alone, as this is one of her lowest rated books here. The first half is hard to connect to because the main character is all over the place with his feelings and reactions to his environment, and the second half he becomes a real dick (I have to think he was named Richard/Dick intentionally because of this) essentially forcing his uninterested girlfriend to sleep with him, this after he is oblivious to her attempts to shrug him off when they first meet, and then he goes on to refuse to marry her but demand she move in and give up her passion so she can be with him all the time. I finished the second half much more quickly because I just wanted to get through it already. I know Daphne Du Maurier felt drawn to writing from a male alter ego but I think she hit the mark a little too closely. XD I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone other than Du Maurier completionists, and even then, the least of all her books.
Not as overwrought as her first novel, but slow -paced, a pedantic feeling.
**SPOILER ALERT **
Odd having the protagonist act out the behavior that had prompted his savior to kill a man. Odd, too, her protagonist's misogyny and narcissism.
**SPOILER ALERT **
Odd having the protagonist act out the behavior that had prompted his savior to kill a man. Odd, too, her protagonist's misogyny and narcissism.
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes