Fingersmith

Rating:
Summary: still reading
Review: I'm in the middle of this book now, so bear with me.
First off, discovering Sarah Waters was the most exciting thing to happen to my recreational reading life in years. I'd rate Tipping the Velvet at 10 and Affinity at a slightly disappointed 7.
As I get to about the halfway point at this book, I have to say I like it slightly more than Affinity but less than Tipping. SW seems to really get into the complicated plot twists - and I'm talking more about the not-really-believable surprise-switcheroo kinds of twists found in Affinity, not the "ooh, now the heroine is embarking on an unexpected adventure" ones of Tipping. Also, less sex (than Tipping) and more cerebral angst (life Affinity) make it a less joyful reading experience than it probably could be.
Anyway, I'm exaggerating with the nitpicking here - there is plenty of (good) melodrama, great characters and description. Had serious trouble putting it down to come to work this morning.
I hope this one has a happier ending than Affinity.

Rating:
Summary: The sublime Sarah Waters is god
Review: This third book of hers clinches it. Sarah Waters is god. There is nothing she can't do. Tipping the Velvet was great; Affinity was beyond great; Fingersmith is sublime. Reading it took over my life. Okay, that's happened once in a while before with a really fine book. But I don't recall this ever happening before: being so engulfed by a book that it made me dizzy, feverish, downright sickened--and hey, if you don't get that these are good things then you're not a serious reader--in sum, it rendered me virtually incapable of going about my daily life, my head and heart were spinning so over Sue and Maud and their story.

Waters has singlehandedly reinvented--no, no, she transcends--lesbian fiction, a genre that up to now has consisted almost exclusively of embarrassing, dim, dismal, dumbed-down dreck. Her writing is literary, her plots are engrossing, her feel for time and place is flawless, and sheesh, she even pulls off incredibly sexy sex scenes that are beautiful, believable, move the story forward and leave the reader's heart pounding.

Fingersmith is breathtaking. Waters is an awesome talent. Goddamn. She does us lesbians proud.

Rating:
Summary: A return to "Velvet" style
Review: Having been a little disappointed by "Affinity" (perhaps, I admit, due to its ending), I absolutely adored "Fingersmith." Waters is a flirt and throws out clues throughout this Dickensian adventure, but I was consistently one step behind all the curves and twists through which she drags our poor young thief-in-training, Sue. Waters language manages to evoke the period without sinking into it, lively and descriptive and long as books had to be in the days before TV but free of that period's moral hangups. Just a lovely read.

Rating:
Summary: another wonder from the excellent Waters...
Review: Fingersmith is a welcome new novel from one of the finest new writers Britain has to offer.

Waters creates a wonderful tone with the first section of the novel in which she also sets up an intriguing premise which is sensationally turned on its head as we enter part two. I won't spoil the various twists by alluding to them here, suffice to say that every time you think you've got it sussed she throws in another twist.

Never forced, always evocative, consistently delightful, Fingersmith is as good as Affinity and Tipping The Velvet and confirms Waters' position as one of the few essential reads out there.

Rating:
Summary: A true page turner
Review: I just finished reading Fingersmith and I want to say that I haven't been this engrossed in a novel in months. I read mostly historical fiction, at least one book a month. This is a true page turner with lots of twists and turns. I could not put it down. This is not a book for the faint of heart or for someone who wouldn't like reading about the slums of London or about lesbians. If you can get past that, you will love this book. If you want a fast pace and a good story that really comes alive, this is a winner. Sarah Waters is a master story teller. I really would like to suggest this book to my historical fiction book club, but most of these ladies would be put off by the sexual overtones. I thought it was handled with finess and great sensitivity. I loved it.

Rating:
Summary: Five stars -- and I don't usually like historical fiction
Review: I looked forward eagerly to the publication of "Fingersmith," and Waters didn't let me down. I don't usually read historical fiction, because it so often is heavy-handed and trite. But Waters captures the Victorian tone & sensibility so skillfully, while keeping her writing fresh, surprising, and original. Her novels contain familiar elements of Victorian fiction--teeming London slums, forbidding country manors, mysterious young women prone to fainting--while also giving voice to realms of female experience that Dickens never dreamed of. The plot was convoluted at times, but I still couldn't put the book down. Like Waters' previous books, Fingersmith has a deep-rooted feminist sensibility and lesbian subtext (well--not that "sub," actually!). But, unlike so much lesbian fiction, the characters have real depth and subtlety; they do not think, speak, or behave anachronistically; and the emotions are complex. Waters has a real appreciation of the way class, power, and gender dynamics get caught up in sexual desire, even desire between women. Amazingly, she also tells a great story.

Rating:
Summary: You pearl!
Review: Any critisisms aimed at Fingersmith have tended to focus on dislike for the twistiness of the plot. I can see that some people would not enjoy this - I know in some other twisty stories I've felt betrayed by the writer - but perhaps because I don't read much in this line, I enjoyed it all immensely.

My interest was sustained throughout because certain things remained true throughout - the feelings between Sue and Maud most importantly.

Best of all, it is a book which combines the thoughtful slowness of a book of ideas with the exciting plot of a book of action. The story, it is true, might not look out of place on a bad soap opera, but the book is pastiche (Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens) as much as anything else. Suspend your disbelief and you'll have the read of your year.

Rating:
Summary: Fun, but a Booker nominee?
Review: Fingersmith follows two orphan girls in Victorian England through the twists and turns of a complex fight to possess inheritance money. The novel is an entertaining trip through the seamy underside of 19th century English life, but how is became a Booker nominee is beyond me --- it must have been a thin year for Commonwealth literature. The novel is completely plot-driven, with characters who achieve two dimensions but do not approach three. The definition of great literature is a matter of opinion. Mine is that it should say something about the world as it truly is, about what it means to be human. Fingersmith is a fun read but not illuminating and ultimately shallow.

Rating:
Summary: An undeniably adventuresome read
Review: Want a book that will be so hard to put down it will seem like it's glued to your fingers?

Grab a copy of "Fingersmith" and you'll find yourself held in thrall until the book is done.

Despite the fact that this book, and Sarah Waters other books as well, are billed as "lesbian Victoriana", actually, they are just plain good stories first and "lesbian" second, if at all.

I would call Sarah Waters the "queen of the twists" much in the same way M. NIght holds that title in cinema.

I am looking forward to seeing the future books a talent as prodigious as that of Ms. Waters.

I only wish that people wouldn't pigeonhole her books as "lesbian." They really aren't. It's like stereotyping her books, and I don't like it. Sure, she has lesbian protagonists, but so what? Do we really, in our modern society, think lesbianism is so strange and alien that if someone in a book is a lesbian, suddenly it is a fringe book? Please.


Rating:
Summary: Love to hate this book
Review: I must tell you there were few times I was ready to put this book away not continue. But I kept reading and the more I read it, the more my opinion about this book changed. I have to say, I loved the plot, it was very original and kept me guessing what's ahead. I liked how carefully characters were drawn... but I hated the language the book was written in. Yes, I realize that given the time line of the story it was appropriate but it made my reading slow and difficult.
You will probably like this book but will never read it again.