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The Servants' Quarters (2009)

by Lynn Freed(Favorite Author)

3.07 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0151012881 (ISBN13: 9780151012886)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

review 1: This book was 'weird', I can see why some might call it gothic, but the story was so intriguing. I can say I enjoyed it. Love the author's command of Cressida's voice, even at different ages. I thought the story's style was dark and ambiguous and vague, which was annoying and yet at the same time kept drawing me in. I actually found myself satisfied with the ending. For the family friendly reader, there is some sexuality.
review 2: In Lynn Freed's The Servants' Quarters, a bittersweet saga of love - a love that, in this novel, is particularly unconventional - takes place over the span of many years, packing an epic of a romance into a little over 200 pages. Certainly the characters in the book are not immediately likeable, and thus, not for everyone: flaws... more and irritations in each character stick out obviously, but in a way that creates a full-blooded human story. Perfection is not Freed's goal. The story moves along rapidly, despite that fact that there are limited locales. Much of the plot takes place in either of two houses, but it is the narrative and biting insight into class that propels the story forward. If at times the prose is repetitious, it only serves to emphasize the circuitous nature of life, and of the lives of the book's characters. The setting was vague and offered little, but the central romance was developed well. Most exceptional about the writing is that it created imminently dislikable people and made them not only sympathetic, but understandable. By creating interesting back stories and revealing information little by little, Freed not only builds suspense, but she simultaneously makes her characters evolve in slight, subtle ways. With Southern Gothic images pervading the novel, the author takes what could have been a generic tale and infused it with charm borrowed from several different literary styles. less

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