I hate to say it, but I was underwhelmed by this book. After all the hype, years of top sales and people commenting on their love for this novel, I was expecting great things. Sadly, this did not eventuate. I loved the premise of this story … that words hold different meanings for different people. I enjoyed the backstory of how the Oxford Dictionary came to be and the many womanly words that were excluded (cunt shouldn’t be considered vulgar when you consider the meaning of it, and yet history has shaped a narrative otherwise). This is something I try to address in A Dangerous Land… how words used in certain ways can develop a discourse. And yet The Dictionary of Lost Words fell short in so many other ways.
I didn’t connect with Esme and could hardly describe her besides being a curious little girl who was damaged by an abusive boarding master and later goes on to make reckless (for the time) decisions that change the course of her life. Perhaps because there seemed to be few instances where Esme’s emotions were shown. I mean truly shown in her bodily reactions. The reader isn’t privy to what happens to her at boarding school apart from a memory. We’re told that it was a terrible time, but we never see it. It’s much the same the rest of the book. We know she falls into a state of depression after a major life event, but I feel very little for her during this time. Maybe this was because the timeline of the book stretched across a lengthy period that it became hard to build up the emotions and feel the impact when major events happened. We know she is close with her father, but then all of a sudden he dies and she’s grieving. There was no build up. Same with her husband later in the book.
I really wanted to love this book but it just didn’t do it for me. Maybe because this is the genre I write in and I’m hyper critical of how it’s executed. Or maybe it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Marisa Jones Author 