Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

[meganbmoore]

Sue Trinder is a Victorian con artist raised in a house of con artists. When the Gentleman, a confidence man with connections to her foster mother hires her to help him get control of the inheritance of an heiress named Maud Lilly by his marrying Maud and then getting her committed to an asylum. Unfortunately (so to speak), Sue and Maud fall in love, and then Sue’s plans are derailed by even more plots.

The book is extremely well written and well characterized, and very true to the period (even the things we’d probably rather not read about) but I didn’t love it the way I wanted to due to the fact that I couldn’t really like any of the characters, who are pretty much universally unpleasant, even when sympathetic. I found it very engrossing, though I saw most of the twists coming (but that may be because I tend to follow narrative trends more strongly than anything else when consuming fiction) and am surprised that, as dark as some of the material was, the book itself wasn’t incredibly dark. Or depressing. I’m very surprised it wasn’t depressing.

Comments

[cofax7]

I didn’t love it the way I wanted to due to the fact that I couldn’t really like any of the characters, who are pretty much universally unpleasant, even when sympathetic

That was my experience with Night Watch, which is an otherwise excellent novel about women ambulance-drivers during the Blitz. I disliked nearly all of them, so it was hard to make myself care about what happened.

[meganbmoore]

I think I have that one, too.

[wingstodust]

I have been eyeing this book for a while, and am glad to hear that it is well-written. I'm pretty good about my characters being unpleasant, so hopefully that won't be a problem for me