Cranford
by Elizabeth Gaskell
read by Nadia May

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Classic Victorian literature

Having greatly enjoyed Wives and Daughters and North and South by the same author, and seeing this billed in some places as Gaskell’s best-loved work, I went into this expecting something very different. Maybe this is just another example of classic writing that I simply don’t get, but I spent at least half of the time listening to this wondering what I was missing. It wasn’t completely uninteresting, but there isn’t much of a plot—at least not one that is discernible until far into the book. Even then, it’s thin.

On the other hand, some of the vignettes are amusing or interesting, and when a somewhat more involved plot emerged near the end, I was invested enough to really like it. I just think that there weren’t as many solid, distinct characters around which this book was written. I realized partway through that I probably should have approached this book the same way I did the other two (though it was not intentional with those two). I watched the BBC mini-series for both of them before I ever read the books, and maybe that allowed me to stay more interested as the plot meandered its way to the end (especially in Wives and Daughters). My husband bought me the mini-series of Cranford recently, so I’ll watch that soon, and who knows, maybe it will inspire me to listen to the audiobook again in the future with a different mindset going in.

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!