Rebecca

I really enjoyed this book, although it took me a long time to get through it. It took a while to fully immerse myself in the time period and to understand the unnamed main character. She is always skittish and hesitant to act, which can be frustrating, but when you remember she is likely only 19 or 20 in the 1930s, her behavior makes more sense.

This perspective also helped me sympathize with Maxim. He is not a good husband, arguably not even a good person, but he is very much a man of his time: emotionally stunted and with no real outlet for expression.

The “haunting” of Rebecca was such an interesting way to write a ghost story. There is no literal ghost, only memory and devotion that linger after death. Rebecca herself fascinated me. At the time this was written, she would have been considered a villain. From a modern lens, she feels more like an anti-heroine. She was the only woman in the story who wasn’t trapped, the only one with true power… and even in death, she still held it.

This book made me think deeply about gender, power, and how far we’ve come.

4.5/5 Stars