Surely, since so many people have loved it, I am reading it incorrectly. This is a novel that I am so surprised that I didn't like that I almost feel like there is something wrong with me and not the novel itself. But at the same time, there are parts that I really didn't like, that I thought were overwritten and needed editing. My struggle with this review is that there are truly sections of this novel that I adored, that I want to send out into the world to be loved by other readers. I was happy to return to most of the narrators in the second part, though of course it was my favorite narrator who we did not see again. Or, rather, as soon as I did connect with them the story switched. I was not prepared for the sudden switches in narrator and did not connect with the narrators in the first three sections. I think part of my own failure when it comes to this novel is where my expectations did not meet what I was given. Three of the narrators we return to twice throughout the course of the novel and two are only allowed one section. Great House is structured much like a collection of connected short stories, with several different narrators. Overall, I found it to be uneven, with parts I loved and parts I didn't. There were times when I considered giving up this novel, but something about it kept me reading and I am glad I finished the novel. My reaction to this novel is significantly more lukewarm than I ever imagined it would be.
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