Friday, November 25, 2016

Rebecca- Daphne du Maurier

A dark gothic tale about a young naïve nobody who marries Mr. De Winter, our broody recently widowed protagonist, on impulse. The new Mrs. De Winter dreams of an exciting and romantic life at Manderley, her new home. However, our heroine develops an unhealthy obsession with the dead Mrs. De Winter, Rebecca, and Manderley turns out to be creepy central.

Ok Hollywood!! You MUST make a remake of this! The 1940's movie doesn't count, it's bound to be cliché and over dramatic as was typical of that era.

Look, I've made your life easy.. I've already cast the roles, I'll even direct it for free! It will be a hit.. promise.

The Cast

Mr. De Winter: Dark, broody, middle aged:


He can still pass for a man in his 40's... right?! Botox works miracles.

Mrs. De Winter: Innocent, Naïve, young



In case you have no clue who that is, it's Dakota Fanning's little sister. Maleficent anyone?

Rebecca: Dark features, beautiful, mysterious character



LEGEND

Mrs. Danvers: Creepy, Skeleton like



No one does creepy like Helena Bonham. No. One.

Seriously now, this was the best book I've read all year. It's made my favorite book list. I know it's not perfect, du Maurier isn't the best with dialogue, in fact there were times when the dialogue was pretty basic and awkward, but who cares about dialogue when you've got the most beautiful descriptive paragraphs. Du Maurier's writing sucks you in and makes you feel like you're living the story with the characters.

I've read Jamaica Inn by the same author and found it to be mediocre at best, but Rebecca... Rebecca is a whole other world. If you're a fan of gothic themed books, this one is for you. It's not creepy in a horror way, it's more of a gothic thriller, but it did creep me out considering I'd read in the dark before bed every night.

I loved all the little details that went into it. Choosing to maintain an unnamed female protagonist was just perfect and fit into our heroine's naïve, plain and timid personality. I can imagine her optimistic and jaded view on life would have irritated some people but i totally identified with her overactive imagination. Haven't we all been there? Day dreaming about all the great things we're going to accomplish and how wonderful life's going to turn out, only to have reality hit us in the face like a brick.

Mrs. Danvers, bravo! The creepy, vindictive housekeeper, who's never gotten over Rebecca's death and hates our heroine on sight. Our heroine was terrified of her and so was I. I dreaded her name appearing on the page because it spelled disaster. The fact that du Maurier was able to incite such feelings in the reader is proof of her genius.

I want to read this book again and get lost in it's timeless pages.

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