What an interesting book this was! The main thing I found so fascinating was how easily it was in the past to have a woman locked away in a mental institution. Naturally, the lack of understanding of what are now commonly diagnosed mental disorders was also to blame for the main character, Esme's, predicament. The author does a wonderful job of letting you experience Esme's life and injustices, and by the time you get to the shocker of an ending, you have to wonder....if you were Esme, would you have done any differently?

The only thing that distracted me while reading this book was the author's writing style. There were times I had to re-read passages because I had missed the fact that the point of view had changed from one character to another, so make sure that you pay attention for that.

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Excellent story - one that stays with you long after you finish the last page. Definitely a page-turner; I couldn't put it down.

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This is a very interesting book. It has lots of twists and turns in it that are unexpected. I did like it, but I can't say that I loved it. I felt the ending was strange and it left me with a feeling that I was missing pages from my book. The author also has an unusual writing style of switching from one character to the next in mid sentence.

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This book was very good but disturbing at the same time. Much like watching an accident unfold, almost in slow motion, you know what's going to happen. You know it's not good but you're helpless to stop it.

The moments in the book when this clue or that clue fall into place and you go, "Oh! No no no no ...." Those moments I had to put the book down because I knew what was coming but to actually see the words written on the page ... To go deeper into a review would be giving away to much of the plot line.

I enjoyed the book very much but the ending left MUCH to be desired.

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I was a little confused with the writing style at first. Since multiple characters are all telling parts of the story at the same time BUT once I got the flow of the characters narratives I couldn't put the book down. It became a surprise with every turn of the page. I keep thinking about Esme over and over and the surprise ending is still being worked over in my mind. I keep thinking I should read it again and really see the underside of what was happening.

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This was the February 2013 pick in my neighborhood book club and I enjoyed it, save for the end.

This is a gothic mystery set in equal part in past and present day Scotland. Esme Lennox was a bit of an eccentric as a young girl and her life's course will surprise you.

This is a haunting story that kept me turning the pages until the very vague and abrupt, but not completely unexpected ending. I feel the end screams there should be a sequel.

B-

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Haunting is the right word for this book! I couldn't put it down, there were no chapters in it so I didn't know when to stop:) Actually I just couldn't put it down. The end left me speechless. I don't want to tell you anything about the story. I want it to unfold for you as you turn the pages. I read a review that gave me way too many spoilers and I wish I had started it with a clean slate.
Read it, let me know what you thought.

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I liked this book for the most part, but there were a couple of things that bothered me. First, the stream-of-consciousness writing when a character is thinking/experiencing something was confusing at times--who is thinking these things? Most of the time it's Esme, and so the disjointed and disconnected thinking seems appropriate. At other times it seems like it's Kitty, but I can't be sure. And a few times it was so disjointed that I had no idea what it was all about.
The second thing that bothered me was that Kitty, because of her dementia, takes no responsibility for what happens to Esme. And so the ending didn't seem right. I wanted to know more about what happened in Kitty's life. I wanted to care more about her.

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Iris Lockhart is going about life, minding her own business and trying not to think about the fact that she is in love with her step-brother when *bam*: she finds out she has a great-aunt that she's never heard of who's been locked up in an asylum for the last sixty years. Iris feels compelled to take Aunt Esme under her wing and the novel goes on to reveal the events that led to Esme's lockup while Iris tries to sort out her own life.

Wasn't too crazy about this one. The book vacillates between Iris's life and what happened to Esme that led her to lockup in the nuthouse. It took a while to figure out that the random stream-of-consciousness passages were coming from an addle-pated grandmother and that added to the bit of confusion over the rapidly changing points of view in the novel.

Nor was the (adopted, step, whatever) brother/sister-being-in-love-thing working for us. Yes, we understand they weren't blood related. It was still creepy in a V.C. Andrews kind of way.

O'Farrell did a nice job of conveying the terrible conditions that existed (and still do, to some extent) asylums during the early 20th-century, but she didn't play enough to this strength. It was one of those novels that could have been great, but fell flat, although we admit the ending was pretty sharp. Ultimately, it needed more One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest quality to really work.

Kinda meh on this one. Don't rush out today to buy it...perhaps a library checkout would be better because it does have a pretty snappy ending.

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A book which weaves back and forth between the purported "author" in the first person, and an aunt called Esme, who is now an old woman in a mental institution, and her memories told in the first person also, It took me a bit to catch on to this, as the shifts wereabrupt and marked only by dashes (as I recall). A very interesting story, but one that comes to a startling end, which I will not disclose. Left me with an unsettled feeling, but thinking about the book for a long time.

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This book was a great read with a great twist! The beginning of the book was a little slow and dry, but once you get to about 1/3 of the book...the suspense really starts to pick up. It is a haunting story that sadly, was a reality for many girls in that time.

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It's not for everyone--and the structure of the book can be a little confusing-- but I enjoyed the underlying mystery of the book. What happened to Esme that led to her spending 60 years in an institution? What was her sister's role in her institutionalization?

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