It came back to bite her several times but it hurt the most when Mrs. I liked Sue and I wanted good things to happen to her so I was rooting for Sue throughout the whole debacle and wasn’t too upset when bad things happened to Maud. By the time she makes it to London, she starts to seem real but I think it was too late for me to sympathize with her at that point.

She’s so innocent as to be comical in part one and then so cynical as to be unbelievable in part two. I’m not sure I ever bought into Maud feeling like a real person. The good ending almost made up for the long road to get there, but I was still a bit disappointed. After being disappointed in part two, part three was a little better, but still seemed to drag to get to the main action that ended the story and I found myself bored until Sue made it back to London. Part two was a bore as I’d already seen most of the action play out from Sue’s point of view and I didn’t really need to see Maud’s view it was pretty easy to guess just based on how part one ended and a little bit of Maud’s story to get her personality. But I found myself ultimately disappointed in how parts two and three were paced. After the end of part one, I was geeked to see how the rest of the book would play out. The way she learned to live in the Lilly’s world was fun to watch and I really felt her affection for Maud grow. Sue was a great character and I liked the battle between her kind heart and her desire to make a fortune for herself. I loved the world Waters built at the beginning of the story. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways, but no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of-passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum. One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives-Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves-fingersmiths-for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.

Sucksby, a “baby farmer,” who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Other books by Waters reviewed on this blog:Īffinity (and book club reflection and movie review)

Fingersmith goodreads