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I loved this book.

I found it difficult to read initially, as it skips between the thoughts and memories of the three women, and I couldn't tell which was which, but once I had that worked out, I read the rest of the book in one sitting.

It is a subject matter I feel strongly about and I think it portrayed difficult situations very realistically.
Thanks.

Phew, glad you liked it!

Curious - which was the subject you feel strongly about: the dementia, illegitimacy, hushing up of the rape of girls too naive to realise or handling of children who don't conform to social norms??

I loved the opening page. Totally agree about the initial confusion of characters but actually found it a great way of handling the dementia part of the story. It really rang true of my grandmother's monologues in her later years, where occasionally she'd mention stuff I recognised and suddenly there'd be some illumination on the connections she was making but loads of the time it was just hard to keep up with who she was talking about, where and when. Although at least the book had some section gaps to give a bit of a clue!

Dementia, and the long term institutionalisation of young women in psychiatric hospitals....both areas I have worked in over the years.

I have previously read this book so decided not to read it again as have a huuge pile of books to read.

I did love this book when I read it - think I virtually read it in one sitting the christmas it came out in paperback. I do love Maggie O' Farrell though.

This book arrived today and I loved it and actually read it in one sitting

At first I did find it hard to work out who was who iyswim.

I thought it was well written and the way it was written added to the confusion of dementia.

I will definately recommend it

I only left myself enough time to read half (I didn't find it gripping enough to read in one sitting!) but I would like to finish it one day. I guess I had too much going on that month. So I will complete it one day; read Maggie O F before and enjoyed her stuff.

Great read, thanks Tigger.
Like others, I read it in one sitting as was totally engrossed. The plot was so strong that I wanted to find out what happened, and the intricacy of the story was just so intriguing.
I'd only recently woken up to Maggie O'Farrell, having seen a few of her books before but not really paid attention, they seemed a bit too chick-lit for me, but this was a wonderful read.
The writing was so descriptive, playing on all the senses to create some very powerful images.
I have lived in Edinburgh and visited India (and North Berwick) so the combination of these settings was a real hit with me!
Underneath the whole plot is the horror of Esme's incarceration, which I presumed was a fictionalised account of probably scores of young womens' lives. It is unspeakable what happened to Esme and the fact that she had to submit to survive made it even more awful.
Some of the critiques in my edition talked about the comparisons between Esme's insanity and that of Kitty, but to me Esme did not seem insane in any sense at all. Just a young woman who did not conform to the expected social norms. Even her final act of revenge did not make me feel she was insane.
Loved the way the plot was revealed through Kitty's flashbacks as well.
I will definitely recommend this particular book to others, and will seek out more by the same author. The thing I love about book clubs best - getting great new recommendations.