Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.
Honestly this was really well done, but the biggest issue I had was how slow parts were before things moved faster and we had all of the threads that were confusing at first tied up. I also think the ending with a character and someone we were introduced to via Elsie, otherwise known as Mad Mabel was just a bit much for me. But I did love the call-backs to Anne of Green Gables and the whole book will just make you sad when you see how Mad Mabel got her name.
Mad Mabel starts off with Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick talking to her best friend Daphne and being very annoyed about her neighbor and his barky dog she can’t stand. When a neighborhood child Persephone comes by to bother Elsie about being interviewed since she’s old (Elise is 81) she pushes her off on the neighbor and then everyone realizes they have not seen him for a few days. You can imagine what happens next. Or maybe not. Because this death ends up bringing up Elsie’s past which she thought she had left dead and buried along with her former hated moniker, Mad Mabel. The book follows as Elise is in the present dealing with those who won’t let her past go and her in the past recalling her parents marriage and what death she was responsible for according to the Australian press.
I did like Elsie. Her past and present selves made total sense to me once you read about her parents, how she was shunned, and why she loved books and her aunt and her aunt’s friend so much. I did think that both parts of the book worked. But as I said above. It did get slow in parts. I kept wondering who the heck was Kitty (it took a while to get answered) who died, what happened to so and so, etc. All get answered eventually, it just takes a bit to get there. Hepworth did a very good job of showing Elsie’s rich parents and the many flaws of both and how loved she was by her aunt. There are a couple of subplots that will just cause you to pity Elsie and honestly I was like well if she killed so and so they had it coming. So there was a lot of that for me towards a good portion of the book.
The setting of Australia in the 1950s and the present day felt very different. I just imagined Elsie growing up in a home similar to Phryne Fisher honestly, but Phryne wouldn’t let anyone treat her like they did Elsie. The present day of course incorporates things such as podcast hosts and true crime enthusiasts.
The ending does wrap things up, but some may argue too neatly. I honestly didn’t mind it except for the one part we get right before we completely finish which I was like um so what is this magical realism? I don’t know. It just didn’t fit with what came before and I wish it had been cut honestly.
