Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Fingersmith 

By Sarah Waters 

Rating 5/5 

Genres : Historical Fiction, Romance, Lesbian love, Suspense, Twisted Tale

Multiple twists in the story make it quite suspenseful and put me on the edge - especially as it drew towards the end. Although it has elements of lesbian romance and love, I didn't find it getting too deep, going into the zone of gross/uncomfortable. What the author tried to portray is true/selfless love between two girls who are forced into plotting against each other by circumstances and their desire to gain some vile objective. But the pursuit of this vileness hasn't smeared their love - only edified it because of how easily they sacrifice it. 

The scenes in the madhouse has me shocked and reeling at the absurdity of it all - how easily a woman could get committed to a madhouse and not see the outside world forever if her husband chooses so - during the times the book is set up in. The more truthful the committed patient tries to be, the more vulnerable she is, the more horribly she gets treated - the draughts to keep her mind hazy/clouded/nebulous, the cold bath plunging to shake away convulsions and other such wild treatments for an already mentally instable person. :( :/ 

Susan(Sue) Trinder is brought up at Lant Street, London by a pampering foster mother who runs a very unusual house. Thieves bring their spoils to the house for pawning them and women who want to get rid of their newborns bring them to be sold at this house. Sue grows up for seventeen years in this setting believing her true mother to be a murderess that got hanged when she was a child. One day a regular visitor to their house , Richard Rivers makes her a proposition to dupe herself as a maid to a rich young girl so that they can steal her money. They plot to trick her into marriage with Richard, commit her to a mental asylum and collect her money sharing it between them. Sue wants to make money for her mother and family - so she agrees. After going to the house in Briar, she meets Maud Lilly who is very vulnerable and innocent to the ways of the world. She falls quite in love with her and though hesitates at times to go through with the plan, ultimately decides to put her into the madhouse. On the day when they drive to madhouse, something unexpected happens...instead of Maud getting committed, Sue gets taken as Mrs.Rivers. This happens to be the first twist. Richard takes Maud to the Lant Street house and we get to know that the whole play is spearheaded by none other than the matron mother! So why has she done it? How will Sue escape from the prison of her madhouse? What does she find when she gets back to her "real" home/mother? Who is Maud and why is she rescued from a fate that befell Sue? 

Very vulnerable and feminine to the core - the characters I think have real villainism and heroism both in women. The man Richard just went with a plan developed by the mother and put it to execution but he pays a big price for his involvement. Women have lied and cheated but in the end,they have  soft hearts that see through the evil they could have perpetuated.