I kind of hate to rate this down so much when it is getting rated well on here right now but it is just my opinion. I started reading it and I was really hoping for it to be a great read. It was not at all to me. It came across as being very fabricated and boring. I could not also believe all of the famous good reviews on the cover. I found that it was a tale of a thief one or more and that is what Fingersmith meant. It just seemed to go along very slowly without holding my interest unlike Moll Flanders where she is shown to be unable to help herself. The little girl was not built into an actual character to me. I can see how it could hold some people's interest. There is something there. Some of the material was taken as she put down from other books.

I admittedly skipped around in it trying to get the idea and there is still some morbid curiosity there. I couldn't understand how a little girl would not understand it was a play and think that Nancy was actually dead in Oliver Twist. If you want to read something playing off the Victorian age it is fine. I actually like reading about it. I also admit to not reading much fiction lately but when I do find something I like I enjoy it. It seemed to all be just laying there. I also did not like the way she the main character seemed to be taking advantage of her lady boss. I suppose there is that and I have felt a little the same I suppose toward female bosses. It just did not interest me. There was also the lesbian part which I didn't feel anything towards it.

So, I'm currently about a week away from taking the dreaded LSAT (law school admission test) in order to one day save the world with my environmental law degree (kind of an "i am the lorax, i speak for the trees" thing). that or study literature forever. At any rate, I bought this book assuming I would use it to take the occasional "study break" from my terribly tedious LSAT homework....yeah, that didn't happen. Instead I hardly slept for 2 days and raced through all 600ish pages, could NOT put it down, absolutely living in the book. When I finally finished it, I was literally out of breath.

Sue and Maud are amazing characters because they are both so perfectly human. So much lesbian fiction and TV drama tries to force lesbians into this bizarre dichotomy of either squeaky-clean good girls in order to prove that they are not "sinful people," or on the flip side, evil seductresses who are trying to "stick it to the man," (and usually turn out straight in the end) to prove the exact opposite of the first image and reinforce negative stereotypes.

I'm sorry, but that is just not real life. Fingersmith's depiction of powerful, beautiful female characters is so refreshing compared to the cookie cutter 2-D characters of The L Word or that awful movie Imagine Me and You where it was just too damn cutesy and too careful not to make anyone uncomfortable that it left an over-sugary account of lesbian life (not to mention they are only together in the last 30 seconds of the film). So why did i watch it? Well, simply because the world has such a small selection of lesbian themed ANYTHING that it doesn't leave much of a choice.

That being said, however, Sarah Waters is BY FAR the best bet we have for writing and/or film adaptations that show characters who are not just "lesbians," but women, who have real struggles, and real desires, and real problems. She seamlessly transcends an entire century and creates Victorian characters who resonate so strongly with 21st century women, not to mention the plot twists, deliciously evil characters, atmospheric nuances, sexy scenes, and overall victorian scandal that make Fingersmith even better.

I also really appreciate that her characters never fall decidedly into the butch/femme duality, SO sick of that! Maybe it's just because I've seen so many examples that don't conform to this and breaking conventions is always a good thing!

Thanks Sarah Waters, like the others have said, you are a goddess :)

The beginning of this novel starts out dark, very dark when talking about Sue Trinders past. Sue lives with a bunch of thieves and witnesses illegal activity every day of her life. When presented with an opportunity to scam a woman with a lot of money, she doesn't give up on the idea but considers it completely before finally accepting.

When she arrives she's not sure what to make of the place and is not sure that her new mistress will be convinced that she really is a maid. Eventually she falls into step with her maid duties and really becomes comfortable in the role of helping her longtime male friend scam this woman to ultimately get her put away forever and to get her share of the fortune.

However, things do not go as planned. Both women decieve each other, and in the end, her mistress is scammed as well. Sue and Maud both discover they have very deep feelings for each other and when Sue can stand it no longer, she finds her way back to Sue.

All in all, I found this a wonderful read with many plot twists that will make it hard to put this book down. The only thing that upsets me about this book is that we don't get to really experience the depth of love that both women feel for each other. I wish we'd experiece it more instead of just in fleeting glances before the book ends.

If you're planning on buying this, make sure you start reading when you have nothing left to do because you will not get any work done!

the first half of this book was so good, i was in shock!
it starts in a slow but very engaging way... turns surprisingly great...
but the second part of the story was too much for me...
i lost interest, i wanted so bad to know what would happen with the main characters, but it just turned too complicated and unengaging...
it all makes sense and it's kind of fascinating, but the emotional grip dissapears and i was a little dissapointed to feel turned down after such a compelling first half.

The first section of this book had me hooked. The labyrinthine underworld of Victorian London, the strange and intriguing characters and the nefarious plot set in motion are the books strongest points and they're at their best in the opening chapters. But by the end of the first section the emotional angst was getting to be a bit much, and the pornography-by-proxy in the second section seems like a 21st century cop out; seriously, the author had to resort to that in order to convey the heroine's bleak, oppressive life? The love story between the two heroines and their mutual betrayal ought to have been enough to carry the second heroine's pathos. When we get back to moving the plot forward, with one girl locked up in a madhouse and the other a prisoner in the London underworld the book begins to fascinate again. And that fascination lasts through a startling twist and a dramatic & emotional climax. But again, at the very conclusion of the book, the author throws in the porno stuff, which honestly distracts from the mystery, the romance and the drama of what would otherwise be a thrilling story.

I LOVED this book. My heart was pounding during several narrative moments in the novel. There are lots of plot twists and turns, and the reader will never see them coming. I lost many hours of sleep reading this book because I just couldn't put it down.