Discover new books on Goodreads

Meet your next favorite book

2015 ratings (3.29 avg)
1294 reviews
Goodreads librarian
more photos (12)

Alisha

Add friend

https://www.goodreads.com/alishad

Alisha’s best-of-the-best shelf

Patricia Brent, spinster by Herbert George Jenkins

Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 1 by Beth Brower

More…

Alisha’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (8)
currently-reading‎ (2)
read‎ (2171)
did-not-finish‎ (55)
review-of-the-year‎ (9)
quasi-tbr-lol‎ (1)

own‎ (142)
my-childhood-and-teen-books‎ (121)
favorite-light-romance‎ (38)
for-a-thrill‎ (23)
authors-to-keep-an-eye-on‎ (19)
happy-books‎ (18)

thoughtful-fiction‎ (17)
bring-the-drama‎ (14)
ongoing-series‎ (14)
best-of-the-best‎ (13)
best-of-regency-fiction‎ (9)
reread-soon‎ (7)

delightful-mysteries‎ (6)
super-suspenseful‎ (6)
series-probably-complete‎ (3)
helpful-anxiety-reads‎ (2)
victober-maybes‎ (0)

Stats | More…

Alisha is Currently Reading

Alisha is currently reading

The Examiner

by Janice Hallett

bookshelves: currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

progress:

(page 275 of 466)
"This is incredibly creepy and macabre but in the most “keep-it-on-the-down-low” way possible, I can’t wait to find out for sure what the deal is 😱😱 it’s freaky but good" — Aug 30, 2026 01:58PM

Aug 26, 2026 10:32AM

Alisha is currently reading

Villette

by Charlotte Brontë

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 4th time

read in November 2016

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Alisha said: " Re-read, Victober 2023:
This book gets easier, in a way, with each re-read, but at the same time it absolutely retains its power to wrestle with the reader. Had I read it in my younger years, I’d have been intermittently bored, and then outraged by th Re-read, Victober 2023:
This book gets easier, in a way, with each re-read, but at the same time it absolutely retains its power to wrestle with the reader. Had I read it in my younger years, I’d have been intermittently bored, and then outraged by the ending. Even reading it as an adult, I hated the ambiguous (but let’s be real, not actually ambiguous) ending the first time through. But having become steeped more deeply in the lore of Charlotte Bronte, I’ve come to accept it and even to understand the story choices on some level. I cannot overstate how helpful it is to know some of Charlotte’s own emotional history to make sense of this book. Otherwise all plot points involving M. Paul — and, honestly, Graham too— are just like, what the heck, Charlotte?

——————————————————
Previous review, Victober 2021:
Upon re-reading this, I grew even more attached to Lucy Snowe than before--and this in spite of the fact that she holds you off with an insistence on her nothingness for a full third of the book.
Villette is probably a polarizing read: I can see that some people don't like it. It is not a neat package. It's a book that plays tricks on you. And each of the two men Lucy falls in love with subvert expectations so much that some readers will be disappointed. So don't read this for the plot--don't read it for a love story--don't read it for your favorite tropes. If you're going to read it, read it for the puzzle box character of Lucy Snowe, the girl who seems to have no feelings. Read it patiently, even though you may not like her or understand her at first. She doesn't think she has a lot to say, but she does. And if you know something about Charlotte Bronte's life and loves, so much the better.

Perhaps my Kindle highlights demonstrate at least a little of how powerful a read it is.

-----------------------------------
Original review, 2016:
I went through many different feelings about this story and its central character, and even yet, I can't fix on just one impression. Lucy Snowe repelled me at first; she relates what she observes about others, and in a slightly judgmental manner, but gives no hint about herself. She is not exactly alone in the world, but the people in her life are not her friends. This isn't totally their fault: she seems unknowable.
When she needs to become self-sufficient, she alights at a girls' school to be nursemaid and later teacher. She's scarcely less thorny there. But there's an occasional thaw, a growing vividness within her. And to describe any more of the plot would be to rob the reader of the journey.

As a narrator I found Lucy Snowe to be very difficult to pin down. She's not reliable. You come to realize that she's holding back items from you that she could have shared sooner. Her estimation of the people around her is also pretty suspect, from my point of view. Do I really believe that one man is shallow, while the other is a diamond in the rough? Those Brontes and their Byronic men! Intense, broody, and moody. But always somehow irresistible.

I don't know if I'll reread this...Lucy suffers from major melancholy and fatalism, and, oh that ending--good grief, why? :|
But, anyway, the book is totally atmospheric with that touch of Gothic shiver which one expects from a Bronte, and the fact that it can make you revise your opinion about Lucy and the other characters in each volume...now that's good writing. I unwillingly loved Lucy by the end. ...more "

progress:

(33%)
"End of Vol 1" — Aug 27, 2026 06:13PM

Oct 25, 2023 06:20PM · see review

Alisha’s Notes & Highlights

Book cover for Eleanor: A 200-Mile Walk in Search of England's Lost Queen

Eleanor: A 200-Mile Walk in Search of England's Lost Queen by Alice Loxton

3 highlights

After tentatively descending the steps, I arrived at the coffin. How strange it was to think that Elizabeth II was in there. This wasn’t her image on a postage stamp or on a £10 note, but the woman herself. This was her very flesh and ...more

See Alisha’s 266 books with notes and highlights…

Alisha’s Quotes

“You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

tags: sherlock-holmes, silence

1128 likes

“Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
― Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, A Life For A Life

tags: friendship

519 likes

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

tags: life, regrets

18685 likes

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.
"Pooh!" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you.”
― A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

tags: friendship, piglet, pooh, reassurance

19637 likes

“Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.”
― Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre

tags: freedom, inspirational, literature

2640 likes

More of Alisha’s quotes…