My Rating: 3.5 stars
Right off the bat, I have to say that I had mixed feelings about
this book – which is why, as I sit down to write this review, I’m struggling a
bit trying to figure out how best to begin.
In reading the summary, I thought this would be a story centered around
the historical House of Mercy, which was a sanitorium of sorts that had once existed
in the Manhattan area of New York back in the early 1900s. To the public, the House of Mercy was a religious
institution whose purpose was to “rescue” wayward girls from a life of vice and
sin by putting them on a path of reform and redemption – in reality though, the
institution was actually a “prison” where girls of various ages were enslaved
and forced to work under harsh conditions as restitution for the “immoral” behavior
that had gotten them committed in the first place. The girls at these establishments were often
abused and punished for any little infraction and for some, even though their
stays were supposed to only be temporary, sadly did not always survive to see
their day of release.
Prior to reading this book, I had heard about these types of
institutions, but did not know much about the House of Mercy specifically, so I
was thinking I would be able to learn more about what went on there through the
fictional story of Effie and her sister Luella.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the summary is very misleading, as only
a small part of the story (I would say around 20% or so) actually took place in
the House of Mercy – most of the story focused on family conflict, gender and
class politics, as well as what life was like for women in New York society during
the 1910s. Narrated by 3 of the main
characters – the younger Tildon sister Effie, her mother Jeanne, and one of the
girls from the House of Mercy named Mable – majority of the story centered
around each of the character’s backstories and, in the cases of Effie and
Mable, how they ended up in the House of Mercy and later on, much of the
narrative revolved around whether they would be able to escape and whether
Effie would be able to see her family again.
While the characters’ backstories (especially Mable’s) were interesting
for the most part and did keep me reading to the end, I was a little irked at
being misled and unfortunately, this did affect my reading experience somewhat. It also didn’t help that the story itself was
the “slow-burn” type where nothing really happens until around a third of the
way in when things start to pick up a bit – even then though, I had some
problems with parts of the plot as well as the way some of the characters were depicted.
In terms of the writing, it actually flowed quite well in that
there was a good balance of descriptive prose and dialogue. Despite the plot as well as direction of the
story being mostly predictable and contrived, the story kept my interest (as I
mentioned earlier) and I never felt the urge to skim or set this one aside in
favor of another book -- both of which I tend to do when I feel the book/story
is boring -- which in and of itself says a lot about how I felt about this
one. With that said however, one area
that was a bit lacking with this story was that I didn’t get a strong sense of
time and place, which is critical for me when it comes to historical fiction. Most of the historical elements that would’ve
established the time period and setting for me were briefly mentioned for the
most part (for example – the suffragettes and women’s marches, a brief mention near
the end of what would be the start of World War I, the House of Mercy itself,
etc.), to the point that I felt like majority of the story could have taken
place anywhere and during any time period.
Overall, I would say that the story definitely had potential and
the writing was mostly solid, it’s just that the execution wasn’t really up to
par with what I expected. Given the
premise, I expected both the story and the characters to be ones that I would continue
to think about for awhile after I finished reading, but I’m sorry to say that
didn’t turn out to be the case with this one -- I liked this one well enough to
finish reading it, but not enough to linger on the characters (most of whom I
didn’t connect with) or the story.
Basically, I’m ready to move on to something better.
Received ARC from Park Row (Random House) via Edelweiss.
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