The Paying Guests

By about page 200, I really wanted to abandon this book. It took a full 200 pages to identify that the main character, Frances, is lesbian, and that she and her “paying guest”, Lilian, were about to have an affair under Lilian's husband's nose. There are a couple important details to the arc of the story in there, but it's way too much character development for me. 200 pages of awkward tea parties, a telling brush of a hand, a blossoming friendship...I was so bored.

There are three parts of the story: pre-affair, affair, game-changer. Each part could have been about half the length, and this book would have been much more enjoyable for me. There were parts that just didn't matter that much overall, and didn't really need to be there.

Read the rest of this review at http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/01/the-paying-guests-by-sarah-waters/.