Then they’re finally together and it’s…stagnant. Until the two women start their relationship, there’s very little story/plot.

This is the worst kind of predictability: I wanted Waters to tell me what I already knew and start putting plot points on the board. It’s a mark of good writing that I, the reader, felt worn out by the same thing wearing out the narrator, but I also had the knowledge that they were going to get together. Though the slow start of their relationship is realistic, the back-and-forth becomes tedious. The will-they/won’t-they dance occasionally falters while keeping Frances in a state of emotional limbo. Barber is heavily foreshadowed from the beginning. (I love the “waddling shillings” bit.) The romance between Frances and Mrs. Barber was a few feet of kitchen and a thin scullery door. But this, she thought, shuffling backward over the tiles, this was what it really meant to have lodgers: this odd, unintimate proximity, this rather peeled-back moment, where the only thing between herself and a naked Mrs.

Living together forces a strange intimacy that she did not expect:įrances had been picturing her lodgers in purely mercenary terms-as something like two great waddling shillings. They disturb her daily rhythms and she’s never quite prepared when she sees them. Once the Barbers move in, Frances becomes uncomfortable in the shared home. Barber if they didn’t live in a big, old house together? Had there been, she would have made a much more compelling character-being stuck in the house keeps her so rigid! But of course she has to have lodgers: How else would she meet Mr. Although the book touches on the changing role of women post-WWI, there’s no mention of Frances looking for work. Frances is mourning her two brothers lost in the war and nursing a grudge against her father, who ruined the family’s finances before his death. Barber move into the home she shares with her mother. The reader is introduced to Frances Wray as Mr. Waters’s prose is solid, even if her characters are flat, and the book is 150 pages too long. While there are stylistic and character choices I dislike, I can see where they hold value. In the end though, The Paying Guests isn’t “so bad” and earns a regular review. Plus, I thought it might be fun to be stubbornly contrary and free myself from the no-touch-spoilers tap dance. I’ve only read one of her other books, Fingersmith, and it became an immediate favorite.įor a good week, I considered posting it as a So Bad, I Read It For You, because there were moments when I was desperate for a spoiler-laden summary. If it were possible to enjoy a book through sheer force of wanting to enjoy it, I would have loved The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters.