This book is awesome. I’m not really sure what I can say about it, but that seems like a good start. It’s awesome and everyone should read this. (I know I say it about a lot of books, but I can’t help having such good books recommended to me). Well, maybe not everyone. This is not the kind of book everyone likes, because it’s dark and full of terrors.

The book talks about two elderly sisters, Blanche and Jane. The latter used to be a stage child-star, while the second became an actress when she grew up, being quite successful then (and more than her sister ever was). Jane, of course, lost her childhood charm and couldn’t act. Nevertheless, Blanche managed to get her sister a role in the movies she was casted in.

When the novel begins (there’s a flashback scene at first, but I mean the story proper), Blanche is on a wheelchair. She was in an accident provoked by her sister, as they came home from a party. Since then, she stopped acting, and Jane began taking her of her younger sister. Blanche uses her situation to manipulate her sister all day long.

That is, until Jane decides she’s making a comeback. She begins hurting Blanche, physically and psychologically torturing her. She fires the maid, the only person who sees Blanche in a regular basis and helps her around when Jane isn’t there. Of course, Blanche is utterly helpless and tries to get help, without any success. Some of the most anguishing moments in the novel are when she is close to make some contact with the world and Jane arrives, ruining everything.

Tension is very hard to write, yet Farrell manages to write it flawlessly. It’s wonderfully portrayed and it’s the best thing about this book. I couldn’t stop reading because I physically needed to find out what was happening afterwards. I suffered, but I enjoyed it. The psychological aspect of the sisters’ relationship is treated with realism and lots of details, which helps to picture it very clearly. Jane is one of the creepiest characters I’ve ever read. She ranks closely to Mrs. Danvers and Gollum. She’s quite gone throughout the novel, and as the pages go on, she becomes even crazier. It’s a lot to say, considering how crazy she is at first.

The ending is one of the best parts, because it leaves you hanging. I’m still not sure what happened there, but the final pages were adrenaline-filled for me. I just needed to finish the book and see whether Blanche was going to survive her crazy older sister. It’s fun, because it takes a fresh view on sisters’ relations. Kind of like Frozen but angstier and creepier.

If you like psychological tension and crazy characters, you don’t need to look any further. This is the book for you.

P.S.: There’s a film version, starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (actually, it’s much more well-known than the book). They hated each other’s guts, and that helped them bring up the tension that is in the book. You should watch it, because it’s really cool, and it stays really faithful to the book in question.