Rebecca Review

 

Yup, another book I read months ago during the HarperCollins's strike and I am just now reviewing. It's my first Daphne du Maurier book!

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is about a young woman (her name is never mentioned in the book, but the fake name I came up for her is January 😂) who, while on vacation in Monte Carlo, meets and marries a widower named Maxim de Winter. When she goes to live with him in his estate (called Manderley), she sees that everyone associated with Maxim (his family, friends, and other people working on the estate, especially the head housekeeper Mrs. Danvers) can't stop talking about and reminiscing about Maxim's first wife, named Rebecca, and how wonderful she supposedly was. The MC then feels that no matter what. she will always be in Rebecca's shadow. But then a dark turn of events happen that completely change her views on Manderley, Maxim, and especially Rebecca. 

I will tell you right now I gave it 4 stars. It was a really fascinating book! I don't usually read stories like these, as it had a lot of tropes that don't normally work for me in storytelling, but for some reason here almost everything was written in such a way that actually worked for me. For example, every character in this book was very unlikable, but I feel like it worked here because I feel like the whole point of the story was to show how awful everyone was. Additionally, one of the biggest plot points is also a murder mystery, which I definitely do not read a lot of, but the murder mystery here was actually rather interesting. 

I also took some points off for problematic elements. The main character and Maxim have an age gap relationship (she's 21 and he's 42) which is normally a huge ick factor for me (and it still kind of was for me here) but I guess maybe since it's a classic book set in the 1930s, I could kind overlook it a little bit. There's also this one scene where they're having a party and all the party guests for some reason thought it would be a good idea to dress up as nonwhite caricatures of people (yikes, I know!). I do not condone any of these problematic elements. 

The book draws a lot of inspiration from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and also, in my opinion, Wuthering Heights for having everybody being unlikable on purpose. So I guess if you're a fan of the Bronte sisters' books, you'll like this book. Interestingly enough, I actually enjoyed Rebecca a lot more than Jane Eyre. 

I will definitely be reading more of Daphne du Maurier's books! The one I want to read the most is Frenchman's Creek. It has pirates in it!

Have you ever read a book out of your comfort zone?