TBC: Each chapter takes on a different point of view of the women at the boarding home.

I found the format of this book to be interesting. Having each chapter devoted to a particular house resident was very engaging. It was a unique way to learn more about each character’s personality as well as their past and present lives. I much preferred this approach to books where each chapter is devoted to a different time period. I can truly get lost in those if not done very well.

I enjoyed learning about each character’s point of view but found Grace’s to be the most enlightening. When we finally learned her back story so much was explained. Just as she was the character that bound the other residents together as a group of friends she was also potentially the most dangerous given the times and how she came to be living in the United States.

It was Arlene I struggled with the most. I, like everyone else in the house, just didn’t like her. I could not find a saving grace about her. Kate did a good job creating someone everyone disliked. And in the end Grace’s survival depends on keeping creepy Arlene close at all times.

I think the use of multiple points of view provides more character depth. We see the characters’ perceptions about each other and then the reality for each character. I enjoyed Grace the most because she was the most mysterious. Her listening is a comfort to boarders and non-boarders. She nudges when others are stuck. She feeds and she fixes. She protects her friends by taking Arlene along when Grace has to disappear again to give Arlene “a fresh start and make sure she stayed patched together.”

Arlene Hupp is the character I had the most difficulty with because she is so needy, jealous and self-centered. She is only interested in fame, fortune and finding a husband for herself. She views many at Briar House as “mannish or eccentric or bitchy.” She doesn’t understand why no one likes her when “she dressed how the magazines agreed a girl should dress, and had the kind of job people agreed a girl should have before she married, and said the kinds of things everybody agreed a girl should think.”

Mrs. Nilsson is a close second. She doesn’t mail her son’s letters to his father and tells him that his father hasn’t sent any money because he doesn’t care. She refuses to get the glasses that Lina needs. She goes through the suitcases of new boarders. She makes Pete drop out of school so he can work and bring in more money and she is stingy with food for the boarders’ breakfast and for her children. She grows vegetables, but only so they can be sold.

I am not sure why Kate Quinn chose to devote a chapter to the principal characters/women of Briar House but it served to really develop the character of the individual women and still move the story forward.

As others have said, Grace was the character/resident whose point of view and actions seem to drive the story and the lives of the women (and some men). But the point of view I found compelling was Reka’s. She is the one, besides Grace, who knows life under an autocratic government, knows what it is to fear, be taken advantage of and, ultimately, to successfully move on and claim what was taken.

Both Arlene and Mrs. Nilsson are undeniably self-centered and selfish. I can, sort of, forgive Arlene to a point. I am not sure she has the emotional capacity to see others as people who have intrinsic value despite their difference and deserve respect. Mrs. Nilsson seems more fundamentally malicious and self-serving. Peter and Lina are her children.

I found the dedication of an entire chapter to a character provided a nuanced and detailed picture of the individual and never seemed to lose the thread of the story.

I’m pretty much on the same page as others in disliking Arlene the most. It’s not so much that she’s a villain but that she was ultimately a shallow person. Hopefully with Arlene married off, Grace can go off on her own again and be rid of her. In addition to Grace’s story (which everyone seems to like – it certainly is the one with the most “punch”), I liked Nora’s story. It was a bit cliche at times – girl in love with mobster – but I liked how she was trying to be independent and principled yet surrounded by corrupt men. A woman for the times, I think. Actually, corruption seems to come up throughout the book (especially among the wealthy) with Reka’s story, Claire’s story and even Mrs. Nilsson who seemed more than willing to exploit her son and pocket the extra cash. I think Kate Quinn chose to do the different points of view so she could highlight the backgrounds and lives of different women of the time (I seem to recall she says as much in the audiobook’s endnote interview). But I also think it is a great way to switch up perspectives on the characters as well as raise suspicion and suspense as to which one of them could be the killer. So that’s a lot of fun.

So I agree what everyone had to say about Arlene and Mrs. Nilsson. Definitely the two characters I had the biggest problems with. But that’s no surprise given they are the villains! Among the good guys I loved Grace the most too because she not only seemed so quietly confident and the mother hen for everyone but she also had such a tragic background and was the most mysterious. Even though she’s supposed to be a villain in the McCarthy era, she turns out to be the most heroic of them all. I really loved that.