Veda O. reviewed on 11/9/2010

Wide Sargasso Sea was planned initially as a prequel to Jane Eyre in order to give more background information on two characters whose troubled lives are sparcely detailed in Bronte's original work. Our author, Jean Rhys, guides us through an island paradise-gone-off and spares no literary expense in delivering as true a picture as possible in colonial, post-slavery Jamaica and Dominica. While this novel does not examine the full list of human emotions, it needles into the most delicate of those feelings and explores paranoid delusions at their most extreme.

The descriptions of madness are indeed vivid. In fact, when I finished reading the book, I was left with a very disatisfied, mildly depressed feeling, and the residual effects took a few hours to wear off. If you are a very stable-minded individual, this book will still be enjoyable, but if you are slightly off center emotionally (and most folks are) the reading of this book ought to be planned- with some fun activity afterward to balance out the serious tone the book leaves with you.

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