I feel that I should like this more than I did. There's a family curse and a supernatural horror looming over the downs, and the setting should be creepy but it isn't. The title is a rather unflattering description of the heroine, and she's certainly the most interesting thing about the story - it's a shame she's not the protagonist instead of the rather boring Armstrong.

What's really made me struggle with this over the few days that I've been reading it, though, is the pacing. It's diabolical. It picks up when there's dialogue, but otherwise it really drags... and Ape's-face is a short book, it should not feel so long. But it does. It really does.