"Life's a scary thing, you know... It's not just living at Wildfell that's dangerous."I was looking for a fun read as a palate cleanse before diving into another fantasy world, and Wildfell fit the bill. I picked this book up because I was in the mood for a cozy mystery kind of book, and gothic, supernatural stories are right up my alley... I definitely can relate with Anne in wanting to escape my life and hide. What I found was an interesting and spooky tale but characters I didn't really connect with.
Wildfell is told from the point of view of Anne Fleming, an American graduate student that impulsively gets on a plane to London to escape her less-than-stellar reality. Through random happenstance, she makes a couple of friends on the plane, both of them showing her a kindness. Bain brings her round to the house he lives in, Wildfell, and she occupies an open room. But things get weird when residents begin disappearing and spooky things are seen. Just what is going on there? There is a lot going on in these 300 pages, and I have distinctly different feelings on two of the main elements so this review will be broken down into two parts.
The Wildfell plotline itself was what gripped my interested and kept me reading; spooky, old building with a lot of history and local legend, and a cast of mysterious characters to go along with it. I found the pacing good, the spookiness getting more and more intense as things happen. I would have liked to see more research on the part of Anne into the house and its history rather than relying on others. Things on this front are wrapped up mostly well by the end of the book.
Where the book wasn't as strong for me was with Anne. There is so much mentioned about her past, seemingly for character development but read mostly like traits that didn't connect to a character. I don't want to get into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say I wish there was more character development beyond being haunted by the past. The biggest detractor for my enjoyment was my inability to suspend my disbelief with Anne coming to London. I get wanting to escape your life and wanting to disappear, and I get the selfishness of not telling anyone so as to not be talked out of it. Where I struggled is the little things: throwing away nearly all her belongings but leaving her only coat in the closet (when she is going to London in January), bringing an unrealistic amount of money to live off of, and seemingly having no trouble with immigration when she has no return flight home and obviously no intention of returning. Perhaps I am just not the kind of person that can relate to this kind of impulsivity, but for me her lack of planning on lodging, food, and necessities detracted from the narrative for me.
"A bolt of anxiety coursed through me. In a few hours, I'd be in London, with no idea where I would stay or what I would do thereOverall I enjoyed the story despite my nitpicking, but I never really developed any feelings for the characters. I think that is in large part to there being so much going on with Anne's backstory and my being mildly annoyed by her inner monologues. I actually found myself most invested in Bain, who isn't the main character or narrator.
"Don't look back there. The past can't be changed. What's important is what you do now."Both Bain and Anne struggle with pasts that haunt them, running to try to escape them and move on. I found it interesting that they found one another - and that the others at Wildfell also seemed to be cut from the same cloth - but that wasn't a thread that was really explored in the book.
cw: abandonment, missing father figure, estranged families, abusive power dynamics, date rape.
Thank you to the publisher, BooksGoSocial, for providing me the electronic arc in exchange for my honest review. [b:Wildfell|39507673|Wildfell|London Clarke|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1522082689s/39507673.jpg|61126711] will be available on April 27, 2018. The pre-order price on Amazon for the Kindle version is $0.99.
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