When I purchased "Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier, I honestly thought I was buying a classic romance novel. I picked it up on a recommendation from a Youtuber. It was on sale. There will be mini-spoilers.
When I started reading it, the story was just a typical romance. Girl meets guy, girl falls for guy. Girl doesn't know if guy loves her back. Serving as a ladies' maid for a well-to-do American woman, the narrator meets Maxim de Winter, lord of Manderley. She is entranced by him, almost immediately, and they spend their days together in Monte Carlo, avoiding her lady, who disapproves of their relationship. They get married in a haste, to avoid the narrator being shipped away to New York without Maxim.
Upon their return, she learns about the first Mrs. de Winter and the love and praises the people of Kerrith have for her. She becomes obsessed with the idea of Rebecca. She imagines what it would be like to be Rebecca, tall, lean, and beautiful.
As the story progresses, more flaws within the narrator and Maxim's relationship appear. He refuses to discuss Rebecca, and becomes enraged at the mention of her name. The narrator resigns herself to a failed marriage.
Until Rebecca's body is recovered from Manderley's bay. The story of her death comes unraveled, and her already failing marriage is put even more on the rocks.
This novel is not just a romance book. I should've known that by the Alfred Hitchcock movie adaptation. Rebecca's ghostly presence haunts and torments both the narrator and Maxim, while the townsfolk compare the new Mrs. de Winter to the old. Rebecca's life and her fake marriage to Maxim come unraveled through the discovery of her body.
I was enthralled. I'm not often shocked by books, and while I saw her murder coming, I didn't expect the murderer and the circumstances to be what they were. Please, read this book. It draws you in with a very human and realistic love story, and then captures you with its twists and turns regarding Rebecca.
"Rebecca" is enticing, tragic, terrifying, and romantic. For a book written in 1938, the story has so many themes that resonate today. Women hiding their sexuality. Rebecca hides late-stage cancer from her loved ones. There's blackmail, glitz and glamour, heartbreak, and deceit.
I ate this book up. From the moment the plot twists and Rebecca's body is discovered, I was hooked. I couldn't put it down. If you like a classic novel with a bit of a twist, this is your book.
