— 3.25 stars —

Well, this book is a big question mark for me.
I wanted to love this book. But I ended up feeling very conflicted about it.

Oscar Wilde’s writing is compelling. That only made me want to pursue my reading. However, the story felt a little bit flat for me, except for the last third of the book, which was both interesting and gripping.

I got into the story pretty quickly, but in my opinion, the pace was really slow, mostly in the beginning. Before

the death of Sybil Vane

, I was kind of… bored? I don’t know. There was no eagerness to read the book.
But then, it got a little bit more interesting, especially when the portrait started to take more space, to be more important.

 “For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul.”

The last five chapters are brilliant. I really loved them and that’s why I rounded my rating to four Goodreads stars instead of three.

I guess I felt a bit disappointed because I expected so much more of this book. It’s the first book of Oscar Wilde that I’m reading, and in terms of writing, I’m not disappointed at all. But I heard so many things about this book, so many good things that I might have hyped it up a little bit for myself, hence this impression of a let down. I do think a re-read will be necessary—and this time in English—to see if I like it better.

(there were many other quotes I loved, but they’re all in French and I’m too lazy to find them in English right now)