Havisham
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By Ronald Frame
avg rating
1 review
Catherine Havisham was born into privilege. Handsome, imperious, she is the daughter of a wealthy brewer, and lives in luxury in Satis House. But she is never far from the smell of hops and the arresting letters on the brewhouse wall – HAVISHAM. A reminder of all she owes to the family name and the family business.
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Only half the book group finished this book. This was mostly because people just didn't enjoy it at all and they didn't want to keep reading. Most said during the book group meeting that they had no want to carry on and finish the book.
We had a bit of a discussion about why people write these kind of books. In some cases it can add something to the story, but we felt that wasn't true in this case. We didn't feel that the story rang true as something written for this particular time period. We also felt that it didn't really stand on its own, you had to have a lot of knowledge of the book it's related to in order to get the most out of this book. It didn't really go anywhere new or introduce anything we felt added to the original story. Ultimately we were disappointed in this book, although the end 1/3 was probably better than the start of the book.
With regards the main protagonist we felt that she was a confusing and ultimately sad character. She seemed to be so very shrewd when it came to business but when it was matters of the heart she was completely naïve and useless. We weren't sure about her periods of madness, were they something she affected rather than an actual mental illness as they seemed to come and go so easily.
Overall we gave this book 2 out of 10.
