The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters, Simon Vance

The Little Stranger is an atmospheric read and has a nice gothic feel to it. And I really liked the way how Sarah Waters describes the dilapidated house, Hundreds Hall. The house feels like a sinister character of its own.

But I had some issues with this book:

 

1. The book is too long and the story overly drawn out. I kind of lost interest in the events at Hundreds Hall at about 350 pages into the novel, so I didn´t enjoy the last 150 pages as much as the rest of the book.

2. The narrator and POV-character of the story is Dr. Faraday, who in the beginning of the novel gets tangled up in the lives of the Ayres family up at Hundreds Hall. I liked him in the beginning, but as the story progresses, he turns into a whiny creature that I just wanted to punch repeatedly. And since I´ve got the impression that he is an unreliable narrator, I´m putting my thoughts about him behind a spoiler tag (and beware, it´s a massive spoiler). If any of you have read the book, please tell me if I´m totally wrong about Dr. Faraday:

 

 

I´m pretty sure that Faraday killed of Caroline. And this kept me thinking that he could be responsible for all of it. Setting the fire in Rods room, giving Mrs. Ayres the wrong kind of pill (at least not a tranquilizer) and maybe doing something to Gyp, which made the poor dog bite the little girl. His weird obsession of the house made me think of this. It´s the only thing he is interested in and it is the only reason, why he wanted to marry Caroline in the first place.

If this is the case, then kudos to Sarah Waters for creating a character, who is crazy but still can keep up the appearance of a sane person.

(show spoiler)

 

Overall this has been an OK-read for me. As far as I´ve heard this isn´t Sarah Waters best book, so I will surely read another novel by her.