Review: The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge

This book was pretty hyped when it first came out, so when I came across it at my library I decided to see what the fuss was about. 

The book is about a young girl named Faith, who adores her father, though he is remote and stern, and despises her mother for using her womanly wiles to get her way in the world. At the beginning of the novel the family finds itself on a ship headed for a small island where they will take up residence, while the father works on a scientific excavation. As the family arrives and starts to settle into their new lives they soon find themselves the object of gossip and ill will. Faith finds out that the family did not move to the island simply because of the scientific excavations, but rather something happened in London which they needed to remove themselves from. As the story unfolds we slowly figure out exactly what happened and who is responsible for the trouble. 

It starts out as a slow-paced novel dealing with family life, the social order and science in the 19th century, but soon this book takes a turn and we find ourselves in the middle of a murder mystery involving dark secrets form the past and a perhaps magical plant. 

I enjoyed reading the book, I especially liked Faith’s perspective on the world. She is one smart girl who can look forward to having to hide her brains for the rest of her life in order to marry and have financial stability, and she resents this, but doesn’t really know how to change it. Throughout the book she slowly gains confidence in her worth as a scientist and that was really nice to see. At the beginning she absolutely dotes on her father and hates her mother, but towards the end she comes to realize that there is more to people than what necessarily meets her eye and she gets a more nuanced view of the world and the people in it, which was also nice. 

At first I really didn’t like the way women were being portrayed in the book, but towards the end it became clear that we were seeing their public personas, which they were putting forth for the world to accept them and give them some room to maneuver. Towards the end we see a bit more of the true nature of practically all the women and I enjoyed seeing these women portrayed as diverse individuals rather than the soft, obliging, dutiful and doting wives and ladies we saw at the beginning. 

I gave this book 4 stars out of 5.