Fingersmith

The plot was excellent, but this book suffered from the weightiness of the prose and exposition.

Sue Trinder is an orphan growing up in the house of Mrs Sucksby, where they get by with petty crimes and selling stolen goods. It's also an informal grooming and gathering place for a number of crooks, the most elegant and big-game of all is one nicknamed Gentleman, who enlists Sue to assist him in a plot he has recently hatched to cheat a lady, the heiress of a hermit book collector, out of her fortune. To do so, Sue has to infiltrate the household and become a lady's maid to Maud Lilly, and convince her to marry Gentleman.

While the story was really good, I think the pacing was a bit off for me. The first arc was all right, it plodded along but it got unpleasant to read at the last part, to the point where I almost DNFed. Then we got hit with the first big reveal. It was a twist which I had called from the beginning, but which I had somehow lulled myself into thinking wasn't possible and therefore had forgotten about, but was surprised to find that I was right all along. That was enough to keep me going though.

The second arc was more exciting for me than the first, or at least the first half of it was. The second half kinda got too lengthy (did we really need like 20 pages talking about Maud's failed attempts at escaping, her going to find Mr Hawtry which landed her in a "house for destitute gentlewomen" and then eventually her going back to where she had begun?). The third arc was the slowest for me and which I skimmed the most, even though so many things were happening.

It's a weird feeling, because the plot twists in this story were really good and satisfying, but there was also just so much filler action IMO. Despite skimming the heck out of the third arc, I still understood the rough gist of what was happening. I can't help but feel that this book would've been way more enjoyable if it had been pruned into 300 or 400-page novel rather than a 550-page one.