Customer Reviews

Adèle: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An excellent maiden effort. I was enthralled by how the author held the reins to the story. Her pace, sense of mood and atmosphere is magnificent. But towards the end, it seems difficult to make the present live up to the past. Looking at things from another angle, we might say the author is trying to convey a sense of how the past was just as twisted in its treatment of sexuality as today's society is.

The characters Blanche, her brother Jonas, and the unexplainable Adele are interesting, but the author never gives us much.

What exactly was Adele? And what caused her to be whatever it was, that she was?

What experiments DID Jonas perform? What did he learn about Adele? And what is the connection between Marcel and Adele?

Adele's story is a sad one, as is Blanche's.

The author never comveys any true compassionate for Adele or Blanche, although they are plainly badly treated.

There is no understanding on the author's part regarding Adele. The author seems to regard her as no more than a creature, a freak--as does Jonas.

Even Blanche and Adele's love is strange, twisted, voyueristic, actually more lust than love. Although eventually we do witness Blanche's devotion, which goes beyond lust.

Over all, however, the book is disappointing because it supplies no real answers; and the author's view seems like that of an objective scientist reporting what she sees through the microscope.

I found this novel to be one of the best I've ever read. Her style is haunting, intense, disturbing, yet poetically beautiful. I couldn't put it down.

The publishing reviews do not do it justice. Ignore them. This is beyond "crazed dr. gives girl clitoridectomy", what a poor description for this delicious piece of work. This is a story that begins a mystery, yet goes back in snippets of time to explain the past leading up to the current narrative. It is a novel about a creature loved and despised, the historical European references are entrancing, the blatant shocking sexuality is described with graceful sensuality. The characters are full bodied. The novel continues into Alchemical mysteries, archaic references and spiritual goals that tamper with creation, destruction, and gender as we know it.

A beautiful, sensual, disturbing, intense novel. Her mastery of words grants her poetic license I have not had the pleasure to read in a long time.... blissful. I have never been so gently or unexpectedly shocked, and then mentally laid to rest with equal ease.

I will buy this book to keep on my shelf and read over. Thank You, Mary Flanagan

The mystery surrounding Adele's mesmerizing sexuality and the decadent secrets of 1930s Paris drew me to this book. Despite witnessing the passions and fears of the book's characters including one of two protagonists, Celia (museum-robbing, sleuthing magazine publisher), the reader never gets to know why these people act as they do. Adele should perhaps remain a mystery, but the fascination behind Celia's relentless search should have been explored. On the other hand, Blanche (Adele's captor/slave/lover) is as fully fleshed as Celia should have been.

Overall, I thought that for such sensual (often grotesquely so) material, the characters seem rather cold. It also seems to be missing a final chapter. Very unsatisfying (but was that the author's intent?).

Skillful narrative, amazing events; hideousness and beauty; attention to sexual (and historical) details, gruesome and original plot. But there's a chilly lack of heart in this novel which all the brains and visual effects in the world can't fix. One of the characters, Blanche, says of her brother, "His eyes revealed more than the usual contempt common to his kind of Englishman (...) pure hatred." Flanagan's meticulous emotionless descriptions almost seem like a form of cruelty.On second thought, is that the point? Puzzling.

I agree with the other reviewers that although this book is supposed to be about passion, it did not inspire any passion and came off cold. This book had charming characters and an interesting core idea but it never came together. After a while I was just plodding through it to see how it came out, and then the ending was a disappointment. Good writing but the plot didn't gel.