Book 22 of 2024: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
I just read this for my book club, and really enjoyed it. Surprisingly I'd never read it before, though I know the 1940 Hitchcock film well, which won the Best Picture Oscar back in its day.
Rebecca is a gripping gothic thriller combined with psychological study. It has a rather leisurely pacing, which took me a while to adjust to. But then it felt more of a natural fit, and I was happy for it to have room to breathe. The story is that of a young woman, newly married and returning with her husband to his Cornish grand mansion home, only to uncover secrets from the past. I don't want to go into the plot too much, but I found it a real page turner. And even though I knew the core plot (there are very few differences between the 1938 novel and 1940 movie), it still kept me glued, through to the very end.
I have seen other movies based on Daphne du Maurier stories - Hitchcock's The Birds, and Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. But I haven't read any more of her writings. And I need to fix that.
Rating 5/5 stars. Easily.
Rebecca is a gripping gothic thriller combined with psychological study. It has a rather leisurely pacing, which took me a while to adjust to. But then it felt more of a natural fit, and I was happy for it to have room to breathe. The story is that of a young woman, newly married and returning with her husband to his Cornish grand mansion home, only to uncover secrets from the past. I don't want to go into the plot too much, but I found it a real page turner. And even though I knew the core plot (there are very few differences between the 1938 novel and 1940 movie), it still kept me glued, through to the very end.
I have seen other movies based on Daphne du Maurier stories - Hitchcock's The Birds, and Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. But I haven't read any more of her writings. And I need to fix that.
Rating 5/5 stars. Easily.
