The Essex serpent-am I ever going to like it?

buckeejit Ali Smith is easily my favourite living author and, in my opinion (and I'm very aware that not many people will share it but live and let live) the best writer in the English language since Virginia Woolf. Autumn is a gorgeous book, as is the next in the quartet. Can't wait for Spring and Summer!

I was really looking forward to it and found it slow and boring. Gave up around 200 pages in

It is fairly shite and unreadable tbh.
I find most novels like that these days, just some are more pretentious than others.

I read a third and it didn't give me any reason to carry on reading it. The cover's pretty but that's about the most positive thing I can say.

I also struggled through The Essex Serpent. My husband enjoyed it and said he thought I would so I kept waiting for an interesting part to happen but it didn’t. Usually I do stop reading a book if I’m not enjoying it. Life’s too short and there are so many other books to discover and enjoy.

I absolutely loved 'The Essex Serpent', easily the best book I read last year next to 'Autumn' by Ali Smith.

That said, I really struggled to get into Sarah Perry's first novel, 'After Me Comes the Flood'. I stopped reading a few chapters in and haven't gone back to it. I agree with everyone who says that if you're not enjoying it, don't keep going. As an ex-literature student, there seems to be this massive taboo about not having read/enjoyed the big hitters of lit-fiction. Such nonsense, you like what you like and everything else can be for others.

It’s not going to get any better.

I stuck with it, but didn’t love it, DH really enjoyed it though.

I loved The Essex Serpent, but I would say if you aren’t enjoying it at half way then you won’t. It doesn’t go anywhere, there is no major revelation or big twist, or anything that will make it “worth it” - it is a subtle and beautifully written exploration of themes of friendship, progress and mystery and I enjoyed on those terms. If it’s not for you at the beginning it won’t be at the end

Hi @NaomiAlderman, I have a bone to pick with you. I have no less than three undergraduates writing dissertations on gender in speculative fiction, and if I read one more slightly clunky comparison between The Power and The Handmaid's Tale, occasionally with a sideloop via The Hunger Games, I will lie down on my office carpet and bang my head off the filing cabinet.

Thank you for listening.

OP, I thought The Essex Serpent was a brilliant premise that wasn't worked through well at all -- I thought it was all premise and a vivid setting, but no fully-realised characters, and just needed more revisions.

I read this very recently. I found it a bit meh. It was readable. I liked the characters well enough. It was well written, very lyrical.
But. Nothing much really happened. And it didn’t make me feel anything. And why were three people in love with her? Just why? She really wasn’t that amazing.
I enjoyed The Power though. Lots of fun and covered every feminist issue in a clever way. Looking forward to a heated debate about it at my book group next week! I love it and one of the other members hated it.
The Miniaturist. Oh yes, so underwhelming. A complete cop out with the whole magical dolls house thing at the end.

'Interesting enough to keep me wanting to finish it but the ending was a bit of a damp squib'

This would have been a good review of the Miniaturist too.

'Interesting enough to keep me wanting to finish it but the ending was a bit of a damp squib'.

My review on Amazon

I got to the end but it wasn't worth it.

I really enjoyed The Essex Serpent.

I thought all the different portrayals of love were so interesting.

Hello Naomi (eek fan-girl)
I loved disobedience- can't wait to see the film. I also liked the one you did set in university - too excited to look it up.
The power is on obamas list of books of the year- that must have been thrilling- I'd love to see a film of it- its a very filmic book!

I enjoyed the Essex serpent v much but found the Essex serpent the least interesting thing about it. I loved Cora and martha and the rev- beautiful characterisations.

It took me a good while to get in to the Essex Serpent (about 1/3 the book) but it was worth persevering with imo - I came to really enjoy it.

I liked The Power, dark but interesting pretext. The Essex Serpent was dull.

As the author of The Power (really, I promise!) I would say: 100% don't finish it if you're not enjoying it. Give it to a charity shop and find something you like better. You have my full permission!

(A lot of people have "must finish book" guilt. I used to have it myself. But I realised that literally no author in the world wants you to struggle through their book while going "I'm hating this, I can't bear it." None of us wrote the books for that. Let them go, be free, not all books are for everyone.)

I didn’t enjoy it, kept thinking I would so persevered but was relieved to finally finish it.

I loved both of the books you mention.

The Essex Serpent is funny, reminds me of Jane Austen with it's subtle humour.

I read The Essex Serpent last summer, quite weak and I didn't enjoy it, Ulysses was easier to read which is saying something.

I'm struggling through The Power at the minute, and gave The Essex Serpent to read next - oh dear!

I've been stuck on The Power for months. I just don't like any of the characters and it's all just a bit miserable.

This has failed to grab me too. I had expected to enjoy it, but it just seems flat and dull. I was listening to it in audio and I wondered whether it could be something to do with the voice of the reader which has a certain unexpressive tone to it.