Synopsis:When the dashing Max de Winter finds a new wife while vacationing in Italy, he feels happy for the first time since Rebecca, his first wife, died. However, de Winter's grim housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, is obsessively devoted to the first Mrs. de Winter and won't let the newlyweds forget Rebecca. As the tension escalates, Mrs. Danvers grows more desperate — and more deadly.
[from barnesandnoble.com]
I loved this novel. I should just get that out of the way. It was really good. It had a very Victorian feel to it, even though it was written in the late 30's.
I thought the characters were great. The main character (I really don't think we ever learn her name) gets a tad annoying in about the middle of the novel, because she is afraid of standing up for herself, but then she finally does, and it's a great moment. I know I was cheering for her. And Mrs. Danvers is a great creepy housekeeper that everyone would probably be a little scared of. Maxim wasn't really in the novel as much as I would've liked him to be. He was more prominent in the end of the novel. He was there in the scenes, but he was a stoic, kind of off-standish character. I liked seeing more emotion in him at the end of the book.
I loved Manderley. The descriptions were great, there were some great images I could see clearly. What's a suspense novel without a big house, after all?
It should be clear that this is an old novel, so there isn't a lot of action or drama. I mean, it's there, but it's mostly about the characters and setting up for whatever drama there is. Much of Du Maurier's writing reminded me of Agatha Christie's writing.
The one thing that sucked was that there were quite a bit of errors in my copy of the novel, so that broke the flow sometimes. I don't know if it's just my edition, or if it's all of them. An editor should definitely go through the novel and fix them, if that's the case. Hah.
But, I loved the book. It's great for a rainy day.
Overall rating: 8/10
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