Oh Arthur Phillips, you are so frequently interesting, so infrequently engaging. Your characters are almost never likeable and your plotlines, even when steeped in the Victorian gothic as here, seem never to develop momentum or tension. I want to work with you on this, I really do, as both Prague and especially The Egyptologist show promise, and had potentially gripping motifs, but it is just not working this time. Sorry....Alright, I persevered. I think a big part of the problem is that the bac...

I remember not really liking Phillips' The Egyptologist, but this has been getting good reviews and the descriptions seemed intriguing--a Victorian ghost story, a terrible family tragedy, etc. Each of the four protagonists has a turn narrating the novel, which isn't a ghost story, and the tragedy is debatable. Then ending is really stupid and totally unsatisfying. Maybe this would be a better book if it wasn't billed as all spooky and cool, since it is neither of those things, but is primarily a...

2.5 starsThe book is broken down into four sections - each section tells the same story, but from the differing points of view of the four major players in the plot. The first section - from Constance's (the mother) point of view - is the strongest and has the most supernatural, ghostly feel. From there, the story becomes less about the supernatural and more about the facts, as the other characters - whether from profession (Joseph-the father; Anne-the "medium") or from youth (Angelica-the daugh...

Comparisons to Henry James' "Turn of the Screw" are inevitable, and yet that old chestnut was at its heart a ghost story. "Angelica" is something different, despite the fact that it seems to be categorized as a ghostly tale. In the end, I'm still undecided whether it is a deceptively brilliant book, or just irritatingly vague and obfuscational in order to suggest something deeper. It kept me reading to the end, but undoubtedly many readers will find it frustratingly repetitive (with the same nar...

I finished this book about a month ago but I can't stop thinking about it. It has taken me this long to put my thoughts together to finally write this review. In many ways, Angelica reminded me of The Turn of the Screw in which a household seems to be plagued by a supposed ghost. Similar to the Turn of the Screw, Angelica is set in the 1800s and revolves around a deteriorating family. Constance and her husband, Joseph, are in a failing marriage which causes Constance to retreat into herself and

I can't keep reading this book. I'm about 100 pages in out of 350 or so and I just don't like it. It is a ghost story that is supposed to be told from 4 different points of view. I'm most of the way through the mother's point of view (this is the first and longest POV) and I am just bored to death and more importantly, I don't care at all. I picked this book up because it was recommended by Stephen King in an EW article but I don't think I can finish. I tried to pause this book for a while and r...

I read Prague a few years back, (also by Phillips) and like this one it was well written, but lacking something. It's the story of a family who is haunted by alternately a "ghost" or a psychosis-take your pick- from the perspectives of the main characters involved and presented in three separate sections: a lesson in the subjective nature of experience. But, the machinations of the author were too transparent. I found the first narrator, the mother, very unsympathetic which prevented me from tr

A family haunted by ghosts both real and imagined, told in four parts, each from the remembrance of one of the four people intimately involved.

What is truth? What is reality? These are the questions surrounding a story told in 4 parts. This book reminded me of the Hilary and Jackie movie told in two parts, two perspectives, wildly different. The reality is you never know what the "real story" is by the end. And that's the point.My 2nd Arthur Phillips. I picked up Prague on a whim MANY years ago and remember loving it. I enjoy reading books by the same author so was looking forward to another mind-bending, if a bit dizzying, writing sty...

I debated between whether to give this 2 stars or 4, so I settled on 3. This is one of the few books I've read and reviewed where I can honestly admit the jury's still out on whether I disliked it or liked it. Strange, no?Phillips is a beautiful writer. I mean really, really good with creating textured sentences, mind-boggling prose. If I only had one-fifth of this guy's writing ability I'd be happy. So as far as just enjoying a wonderfully written piece of writing, this.is.it.folks.It's complex...

This novel sat on my bookcase before I even heard of Goodreads; it is one of my oldest books to be read. After reading half of this book, I am dropping it. It seemed to have promise -- a Victorian ghost story that plays homage to Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. It is the tale of an upper class family, the Bartons, comprised of a father, mother, and the eponymous daughter. Friction already existing between the family members only become worse when the mother views a apparation of blue light h...

“Rashomon” meets “The Turn of the Screw.” Wilkie Collins rewritten by Vladimir Nabokov. There are several high-concept ways to describe Arthur Phillips’ intriguing, sometimes head-spinning “Angelica.” It’s a wickedly ingenious deconstruction of a Victorian ghost story, but it’s also a whodunit, as well as a what-, when-, where-, how- and especially whydunit. The premise is this: Constance Barton, after two miscarriages, gave birth to a daughter whom she and her husband, Joseph, named Angelica. T...

SPOILERS!! Speculations on ending!!Pros: very well written Victorian-style language. A few interesting characters and some good psychological-thriller elements. The book is written from the perspective of several characters, and I thought that was well done, since my opinion of the characters (and my mental picture of them) changed with each perspective. I love the "unreliable narrator" technique, which was enough to earn the book an extra star on its own, although not nearly in the class of "Th...

I've had this book for ages and I've started it countless times and then bogged down, and stuck it back on the stack. Finally I decided...I WILL READ IT. And I've been trying, really I have. I only make myself read a chapter at a time, and then I can put it down. After a point, what IS the point to doing that? If I'm not enjoying a book I should jettison it. And so I finally skimmed through to the end, which I didn't really get. Reading other reviews I see that isn't unusual, the ending is ambig...

Hated this book with a burning passion. Terribly written, terrible characters, stupidest plot....just one of the worst books I've ever read (though I couldn't finish it). I really liked Phillips' The Egyptologist, so this one was really disappointing. (This book was so bad, it actually really pissed me off!)

Read for ENG 410. I want to hate this book considering how frustratingly vague the end is, but I also know that’s the point—the human mind tricks itself, and everyone believes themselves to be the hero of their story. I was very drawn into the mystery and landed on a conclusion that satisfies me even if the story refuses to confirm or deny it. All in all, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would but I would never recommend it to anyone.

This book was terrible. It struggled through every page and sometimes had a hard time staying awake. Angelica is a advertised to be a ghost story, family tragedy, and mystery rolled up into one. The same set of events told from four different characters. Sounds promising right? It was terrible. There is no actual ghost story, and what family tragedy? Even after finishing I cannot figure out what actually happened. Maybe I am simply not intelligent enough to have understood the story, but I did h...

In late October, when one is sitting in a one's small warm room staring out into gray wet or bright bright day, one's thoughts cannot help but turn to the supernatural, spiritualists, madness, prisons, children, the sciences, the occult, new brides, old widows, Queen Victoria, Freud, Darwin, pixies, reading rooms, public houses, vivisection,mass murderers, confused constables, dead fathers, weeping mothers, prettier sisters, and reasonable brothers. If you are searching for other and possibly mo...

Constance Barton has had enough miscarriages that the doctors now forbid her to have intercourse with her husband, for one more pregnancy will likely kill her. She begins to fear his every touch, but when a strange spirit seems to be attacking their daughter, she starts to see connections between it and her husband's behavior. She hires a spiritualist, but it may already be too late. The story is told from four points of view, one after the other, each adding a new layer to the confusion. Is the...

I listened to this as a book on cassette. My disclaimer to the readers of this review is that the annoying voice of the narrator on the cassette tapes may have effected my judgment of the book.This was agony to get through. I appreciated the unique viewpoints but all of the characters were deplorable. I simply could not get "into" it without a single likable character. It's not just that they were not likable, I really tried to like them, and ended up detesting them all. I found myself yelling a...