Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Reviewed by Abby
📕📘📒📗📙

I could not put down this book. Don't dismiss it as an average historic read; it's a genre-defying, rich and completely engrossing story of the rise of Thomas Cromwell in Henry VIII's court. You are a viewer close in Cromwell's world, his growing part to play in an almost ridiculous court which treats him mostly with disdain because of his low social status. An outsider, commoner, traveller, innovator, both ruthless and kind, your views of him develop alongside his rise to prominence and parallels how he plays on his own mystery and perception within the narrative. You are in on the secret of who he is, to a degree, and have the capacity to like him, whilst also feeling the same disturbance that the other characters feel in his unknowable depths. I found myself rereading sentences and paragraphs, even single words, over again because of Mantel's beautiful, unexpected writing. She catches you unawares and draws you in, peopling a well known story with humanising and moving characterisation. I can't wait to read Bring Up The Bodies, the following book. A very well deserved Man Booker winner!