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The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield


KW

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I have read this book in the earlier this year and eventhough I enjoyed it I share the view of Chicken. I do believe the character of Margaret and some others were underdeveloped and I too had trouble with the timesetting. Margaret is not a modern girl, I placed her somewhere in the Fifties or Sixties but could be totally wrong.

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  • 7 months later...

Are we talking about Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale? Because if we are, I couldn't be more confused. Never before have I heard of a person who didn't like that book :smile2: And this is the second thread on disliking The Thirteenth Tale that I've come across on this forum! Or was the Finnish translation just so good that it made a poor read fantastic? :) That would be a first...

 

Seriously speaking, I liked most of the characters and I really enjoyed the storyline and was surprised at the twist in the end. It was one of those books that you want to read in one sitting.

 

If there's anyone on the fence with this book, go ahead and give the book one try, there's no harm done. :)

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I finished reading this last night and really enjoyed it! Am I the only one?! I thought it was great, a real page-turner. I did guess a few of the twists, admittedly and could have done without quite so much about Margaret's twin but overall, I thought it was fab. Beautifully written and really original.

I didn't mind not knowing exactly when it was set - I felt it was a timeless sort of book which didn't need pinning to a specific year. Margaret did feel slightly old-fashioned, I thought, so wouldn't have pegged her as 21st century, and there was no mention of anything remotely 'modern' like mobile phones etc, but I was happy to go along not knowing the date.

:)

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  • 4 months later...

Having just read you review Kylie, I pretty much agree on your thoughts. The author obviously has a love of books, and of words, and I very much liked her style.

 

I had the same problems.. there was a little too much about Margaret's twin, and I did feel the Angerfield family's characters were slightly unbelieveable. However, despite those points, the story hooked me, and I felt connected to the characters. In fact, I was surprised how upset I was as some of them died.

 

I also never considered the era, there was nothing really modern in it, but I did feel it was set quite recently, with Margaret being a rather sheltered, old-fashioned person.

 

All in all, a very good start to my reading year. :D

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This is an interesting point.. why do some of you feel that you need to know when a book is set, and why do you feel unsettled if you don't? It was something that I didn't even consider until I started reading other people's thoughts and reviews. Do books need to have a particular time setting?

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Michelle that is something that I was wondering myself, why it unsettled me. I have never really had this before with other books so perhaps it is just this one. Mind you something is flickering in my brain about a book I have read in the past that was quite ambiguous about time but cannot remember what it was!

 

I would be interested to hear what others say about this.

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  • 4 weeks later...

All these posts about this book have intrigued me. I only discovered the book because when searching on Amazon to see if Elizabeth Kostova had another book out, The Thirteenth Tale was listed right underneath The Historian. Anyway, I've requested it at the library and when I go to the used book store this weekend I'll have a look. I'm hesitant to pay full price, but it looks like something I would rather enjoy. Thanks for the posts, everyone!

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Quite often, for me, the setting of a book is usually one of the reasons for reading it. I go for period books generally as I like to picture the scenes, the gentileness of the Victorian/Edwardian era, the rawness of Medieval times and the quaintness of the 20s through to the 50s, these hold something special for me. I think I would be unsettled if I didn't know what time to picture it in.

 

However, I am intrigued by this book and although I promised myself no more book piling up (and it's only January:smile2:) I may seek this out in the library.:readingtwo:

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This is an interesting point.. why do some of you feel that you need to know when a book is set, and why do you feel unsettled if you don't? It was something that I didn't even consider until I started reading other people's thoughts and reviews. Do books need to have a particular time setting?

 

I actually didn't realise until about halfway through that I had no idea of when this was set. But I quite liked that about it:)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I finished this a few days ago and must say I really enjoyed it. I'm glad I picked it up and to tell you the truth, had I not read the posts here about the time-period issue I don't even know that I would have noticed it. I think vehicles were mentioned, but other than that it was kind of nice not to read about the internet and cell phones (or even regular phones for that matter). Writing letters, old book shops and big estates just seemed to go together so well! I will definitely look for more from Setterfield.

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  • 6 months later...

I finished this book a couple of months ago and must say that I quite enjoyed it. It was unlike anything I've ever read before and I thought Diane Setterfield's writing style was very poetic. I thought the characters were unique, the plot interesting and imaginative. This book has tragedy, dark stormy nights and mystery; it's certainly not realistic and no doubt, wasn't meant to be so I found with that in mind I was able to accept the unbelievable characters; I did find the Angelfield family to be quite over-the-top and extremely odd. All in all, I liked it and certainly enjoyed Diana's beautiful writing style enough to try anything else she may publish in the future.

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