• Author: Daphne du Maurier
• Series: Standalone
• No. of pages: 447
• Dates read: 10.01.20 – 18.01.20
• Rating: 4 stars
• Challenge: ONTD 2020 (Jan – Read a book being turned into a movie or TV show in 2020)

Plot: Working as a lady’s companion, the orphaned heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. Whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to his brooding estate, Manderley, on the Cornish Coast, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding Mrs Danvers . . .

I had seen a play of this book a couple of years ago and I loved it! This meant that going into this book I knew what was going to happen and I have to be honest it did hinder this read for me. I truly believe this book would have been 5 stars if I didn’t already know what was happening.

First thing I want to say is I loved our main female protagonist. Our protagonist clearly has anxiety and insecurities and reading the story through her eyes was really interesting. I loved her and I think that is through watching her go through the ups and downs of this story and seeing her anxiety get the best of her at times. I personally think its a very true representation of what it’s like being in someones head who suffers from anxiety.

The plot to me was 10 out of 10. It was masterful, it was something that I feel would have been made today, it was a thoroughly modern thriller. I didn’t expect something like this really outside of Agatha Christie!

The characters are incredible. I hated some characters tremendously. I loved other characters incredibly. But let me tell you Daphne du Maurier can write some layered characters! I loved how Rebecca felt so real and physical in this story despite never seeing her and only getting images of her based on what the characters in the book tell us.

I felt that the writing was incredibly beautiful, the way the author described Manderly and the grounds, the way she described scenes of incredible tension, the atmosphere created was haunting, at times I found myself feeling physically uncomfortable. My only criticism is I personally wanted to focus on the plot and many times you would have to read pages of description which started to get boring especially when the plot picked up. I found myself glossing over these paragraphs as I didn’t care about the trees and the way the sea sounded.

Overall, if I didn’t already know what was happening in this story this would have been a 5 star read. I think also I would not have minded the extra pages of description if I didn’t know what was happening. That being said, great plot and incredible characters.