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Anna Hope

Autor(a) de Wake

6+ Works 850 Membros 98 Reviews 1 Favorited

About the Author

Includes the name: Anna Hope

Obras de Anna Hope

Wake (2014) 391 cópias
The Ballroom (2016) 240 cópias
Expectation (2019) 205 cópias
The White Rock (2022) 12 cópias
De witte rots (2022) 1 exemplar(es)
Der weiße Fels 1 exemplar(es)

Associated Works

The Condemned (2008) — Narrador — 39 cópias
The Raincloud Man (2008) — Narrador — 32 cópias
The Crimes of Thomas Brewster (2011) — Narrador — 23 cópias
Doctor Who: The Legacy of Time (2019) — Narrador — 20 cópias
Doctor Who - Tales from New Earth (Doctor Wh0) (2018) — Performer — 11 cópias

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Membros

Resenhas

What an unsuspectedly amazing book! After I read it I wished I had read it when I was in my early twenties, but there is no way I would ever get it at that point in my life.

There is definitely something generational about it, about being at that exact point in life when you have some history behind you in your adult life. And, it looks a lot different than what you expected.

I got this as an audiobook at first but then switched to a Kindle version because the language was so beautiful I wanted to go back to certain sentences to read them all over. The plot was not very original, that's true. But, in this book, the plot is just a vehicle. The real value is in the unsaid, between the lines. Tiny reflections, passing thoughts, seemingly unimportant actions.

After months of reading books without much emotional depth (despite it always being promised on the blurb), this one packed a punch. There were some insanely well-written passages, never overly sentimental, but really deep. The chapter describing the death of Sarah, Lissa's mother, was devastatingly beautiful, especially the part with Lissa and Ida cleaning her body.

This is a piece of women's fiction I love to read and that I would love to reread.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
ZeljanaMaricFerli | outras 14 resenhas | Mar 4, 2024 |
we! love! british! authors!!!!! Expectation explores the dynamics of women’s friendships. and you add in extended families, memories, marriages, careers, infertility struggles, cheating, betrayal, loss and love and ugh you get a wonderful book! “Much of their lives is still before them. They have made mistakes, but they are not fatal. They are no longer young, but they do not feel old. They still have time, time to look backwards and time to look forwards. Life is still malleable and full of potential. The openings to the road not taken have not yet sealed up”. “They still have time to become who they are going to be”. two quotes from the book that i love. Anna Hope's writing is lovely. the topic of this book wasn't anything new, but her writing is very engaging and readable and real. these characters were everything! truly felt like i knew them personally. female friendships are important and Hope examines these friendships and all their complexities. the highs and lows. this book is also about the expectations we put on ourselves and the milestones we expect to have reached at certain points in our lives. and about the expectations we have of others, how they ultimately fall short and people stumble from the pedestals we put them on. just a beautifully written book that i loved… (mais)
 
Marcado
Ellen-Simon | outras 14 resenhas | Dec 21, 2023 |
I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

When I first read the blurb for this book I thought: "Wow! A book tackling the drama of last century's mental institutions... I must read it!" Maybe I set my expectations a little too high, maybe I just picked the wrong time to read it... Fact is, I didn't quite enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. But! Let's start with what I did in fact like about this read...

For starters, I really appreciated having the story told through three separate POVs. I liked getting inside the head of the main characters and trying to figure out why they acted the way they did. The character of the doctor, in particular, was a very complex one, by no means flat in his role, so I particularly enjoyed seeing the asylum from his point of view. Watching the story unfold also from John's and Ella's perspective completed this picture perfectly.

I also liked the historical setting. The heatwave of 1911 is not a period I was terribly familiar with, so I quite enjoyed finding out some more bits and pieces of information about it. The author did a magnificent job of recreating life inside an asylum at the beginning of the twentieth century, with all its dark sides and its immense sadness.

However, the story went by just a little too slowly for my taste, and I found several parts to be flat out boring. While I appreciate what the author was trying to do when she put her focus on the Eugenetics Movement (which is really S C A R Y to think about as a part of European history), sometimes the scientific explantations were just too much. If you're into accurate reconstructions and don't mind details, you'll love this, especially as it shows the remarkable research the author carried out to write this book. For me, however, it made the story flow less easily, and I found the level of detail a tad excessive.

As for the characters, I had real problems in getting attached. Despite the story being told through three separate POVs, I didn't manage to establish a connection with any of the main characters, and wasn't very concerned about their fate by the end of the book. I wasn't too keen on the love story either. I felt like the romance just appeared out of nowhere, and faded almost as quickly, with the two main characters loving the idea they had of the other much more than the other person. Again, maybe I just picked the wrong moment to read this, but I just couldn't see a great, tragic love story in these pages...

Overall, this book is definitely impressive for the amount of research the author carried out and the accurate reconstruction of an early twentieth-century asylum that she is capable of creating. It does also raise some interesting questions on mental health, institutions and who should be able to make crucial decisions for vulnerable individuals in society. However, for me, it went by way too slowly. In my opinion, it works well as historical fiction, not so much as a romance. Definitely recommended if you like detailed historical reconstructions of lesser-known periods, supported by a fantastic research job.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
bookforthought | outras 15 resenhas | Nov 7, 2023 |
Historical fiction set in Yorkshire, England, in the early 1900s at Sharston, a mental asylum. Ella Fay is sent to the asylum for an outburst at her workplace. John Mulligan is suffering from melancholy after the death of his wife and child. Charles Fuller is a doctor attempting to treat the patients, but often inflicting more harm than healing due to the misguided notions of the time period. Charles establishes regular music and dancing in the ballroom, where Ella and John meet. The story follows their blossoming relationship and the doctor’s ambitions to publish a paper that will advance his career. We wonder if Ella and John ever needed to be confined in the first place, while watching the doctor’s mind and actions deteriorate.

The characters are realistic, and the plot is multifaceted. It is based upon a real institution of the time period. Though the plot and characters are fictional, the issues it explores were very real. It examines the prevailing concepts of eugenics and forced sterilization. It is sad to think that so many people who had fallen on hard times, or were poor, or had simply made a mistake were locked up with others who truly needed mental treatment. It will make the reader glad that mental issues are no longer handled the way they were in the early 1900s.

This novel is well-crafted and well-researched historical fiction. I found it a powerful story about the role of hope and personal connection in conditions of powerlessness.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
Castlelass | outras 15 resenhas | Oct 30, 2022 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
6
Also by
5
Membros
850
Popularidade
#30,105
Avaliação
3.8
Resenhas
98
ISBNs
85
Idiomas
9
Favorito
1

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