{"id":535,"date":"2018-11-14T15:00:48","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T14:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/readerwitch.com\/?p=535"},"modified":"2018-11-14T15:00:48","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T14:00:48","slug":"the-little-stranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/2018\/11\/14\/the-little-stranger\/","title":{"rendered":"The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Genre: gothic novel and mystery.\u00a0 \u2b50\ufe0fStars from Goodreads: 3.5. \u2b50\ufe0fStars from me: 5.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\">General information about <em>The Little Stranger <\/em>by Sarah Waters<\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2Dw0M3X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Little Stranger<\/em><\/a> is a story about a noble English family living through the days of their financial decline in their quickly dilapidating mansion. A local doctor befriends them during a professional visit to the family&#8217;s only servant. The doctor watches how the family is trying to stay true to themselves while their house is falling apart, and some strange and scary things start happening in it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">There\u2019s now a movie adaptation of the book but it looks like the movie isn&#8217;t even remotely as deep and multilayered as the book is (and the doctor looks about 15 years younger than he should be). Here&#8217;s the trailer if you are interested.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Little Stranger Trailer (2018) Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Ruth Wilson\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/53aql0PGhaw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\">I listened to the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2DhzQE2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">audio version of <em>The Little Stranger<\/em>,<\/a>\u00a0and I\u2019m sure that I liked the book so much, largely thanks to the Simon Vance who was reading the story. His narration is perfect. He created different intonations and melodies for each character. They are very distinctive but not overplayed. In fact, he sounds so natural, I sometimes forgot he was not telling his life story but reading a work of fiction aloud.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\">What I liked about\u00a0the book<\/h3>\n<h4 class=\"p1\">The atmosphere<\/h4>\n<p class=\"p1\">The atmosphere is palpable. You can breathe in the cold humid air, see the fields and admire the old mansion. When the scary things start happening, they frighten you not because of what they are, but because of how real they feel.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p1\">The characters<\/h4>\n<p class=\"p1\">The characters are very well developed and deep. It&#8217;s hard to believe they are not real people. I was almost brought to tears when something horrible happened to one of them because I had grown so fond of this character.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\">The most awesome thing about <em>The Little Stranger<\/em><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\">The most awesome thing about the book is its story. The events can be interpreted in several different ways. I\u2019m sure each reader will perceive the book differently. To some it will be a creepy gothic story, to others it will be purely psychological. To someone else it will be something more. The author never spells things out for you. It doesn\u2019t mean that there are open endings or gaps left by a lazy writer for a reader to fill in on their own. You have to be really vigilant and careful to see what\u2019s really going on. That\u2019s why I think this book is genius.\u00a0<em>The Little Stranger\u00a0<\/em>will definitely make it to the best books I&#8217;ve read this year. I was actually so impressed with the ending I created\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/book-discussions\/the-little-stranger-ending-discussion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a separate discussion page<\/a>\u00a0(spoiler warning for that discussion page). I would really love to discuss the ending with others who have read the book. Please, visit the page if you finished the book and share your thoughts!<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\">What I didn\u2019t like about <em>The Little Stranger<\/em><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\">There was really nothing I disliked. If I wanted to be truly meticulous I\u2019d say that there could be more action in the first part of the story. I found it developing rather slowly there. That being said, I was so immersed into the whole atmosphere, the house, the characters that I didn\u2019t really need anything else. I was enjoying the book completely.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\">Would I recommend <em>The Little Stranger<\/em>?<\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\">I would urge everybody to read <em>The Little Stranger<\/em>. Although this book is a bit slow for a typical thriller, I think it might still be liked by those who like reading thrillers. I would definitely recommend it to anybody who loves gothic literature, classic stories and the atmosphere of old England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A local doctor befriends a noble English family who&#8217;s living through the days of their financial decline. The doctor watches how the family is trying to stay true to themselves while their house is falling apart, and some strange and scary things start happening in it. <a href=\"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/2018\/11\/14\/the-little-stranger\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[279,294,511,515,528,599,600,601],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}