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The World Before Us: A Novel
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The World Before Us: A Novel
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The World Before Us: A Novel
Audiobook12 hours

The World Before Us: A Novel

Written by Aislinn Hunter

Narrated by Fiona Hardingham

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

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Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

In the tradition of A. S. Byatt's Possession, a hauntingly poignant novel about madness, loss, and the ties that bind our past to our present

Deep in the woods of northern England, somewhere between a dilapidated estate and an abandoned Victorian asylum, fifteen-year-old Jane Standen lived through a nightmare.  She was babysitting a sweet young girl named Lily, and in one fleeting moment, lost her. The little girl was never found, leaving her family and Jane devastated.

Twenty years later, Jane is an archivist at a small London museum that is about to close for lack of funding. As a final research project--an endeavor inspired in part by her painful past--Jane surveys the archives for information related to another missing person: a woman who disappeared over one hundred years ago in the same woods where Lily was lost. As Jane pieces moments in history together, a portrait of a fascinating group of people starts to unfurl. Inexplicably tied to the mysterious disappearance of long ago, Jane finds tender details of their lives at the country estate and in the asylum that are linked to her own heartbroken world, and their story from all those years ago may now help Jane find a way to move on.

In riveting, beautiful prose, The World Before Us explores the powerful notion that history is a closely connected part of us--kept alive by the resonance of our daily choices--reminding us of the possibility that we are less alone than we might think.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 31, 2015
ISBN9781101913376
Unavailable
The World Before Us: A Novel

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Rating: 3.0642857571428572 out of 5 stars
3/5

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I really struggled with this novel - I never felt engaged with the characters (just saddened by them), some of the narration was a bit strange, and I felt there was no real conclusion to the novel. Typically I love novels that intertwine the past and the present and offer a little mystery, but the mixture seems a bit off and I felt like the author was trying to develop something new and innovative in her writing, but it just didn't work for me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In The World Before Us, Aislinn Hunter tells the story of Jane, a woman haunted by a mystery in her past. When she was a teenager, a young girl she was watching disappears in a forest and is never found. When we meet Jane, as an adult, she is working at a museum and studying a Victorian asylum near the forest where the girl, Lily, disappeared. This is also near the estate of a Victorian botanist that was the subject of a book by William, Lily's father.Jane is followed around by a group of ghosts or spirits who narrate much of the events and follow her around. As Jane tries to solve a mystery of the disappearance of someone from the asylum known only as N., the spirits comment and discover what they know about the places and names that she discovers.While the novel has two mysteries at its heart, it is really more about discovering who one is and how to live with the past. There is too much deferral in the discoveries that Jane makes, and the late intrusion of a love interest seems out of place, but otherwise this is an enjoyable novel for anyone interested in the Victorian era.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This novel tells the story of two missing girls in England who lived decades apart. The heroine, Jane, was the young nanny who lets a small girl that she is watching go missing. Jane grows up to work at a museum and reads about a missing girl years before. She reads about this case and becomes intrigued and delves into the mystery leading into the family of a well known explorer and the patients at a nearby mental institution. The mental patients long dead (apparently ghosts) are actively interested in what Jane finds out. I found her progress way too slow and her love affair with a younger man a distraction.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Told in combination of present & past, this is a story of two disappearances: one of a mysterious girl (N--) associated with a psychiatric residence in the late 1800's, and the other of a younger girl (Lily) who disappears while being looked after by her teenage minder at the time, Jane. The story centers largely around Jane a couple decades later (present day), who has become an archivist but who is also still haunted by the disappearance of Lily. There is also a supernatural element, that of the so-called ghosts who the reader gathers lived around the time of the original disappearance of N--, and who hang around Jane, trying to remember exactly who they are and what role they may have played. The reader gradually sees how these two stories intersect as the novel progresses.I'm wavering over rating this 3 or 3.5 stars. The writing in this novel is beautiful, or nearly so, but at times it seems almost overdone. The story is rather unique in the way it was written. Were it not for the extremely slow pacing of this book, I likely would've rated it higher. But the pace really was SO slow. I nearly gave up on this one. It began to pick up about 2/3 of the way through, and it wasn't until that point that I really did feel invested and wanted to know how it all would end. (SPOILER ALERT!!!) But alas, another disappointment: the ending. I literally was reading along quite happily, nearing the end, turned the page to continue reading, and was presented with the "Acknowledgements" page with no warning whatsoever. Typically, I don't always expect or even always enjoy tidy endings, but with this one, I wanted to slam the book & throw it across the room. Bottom line: If you like carefree, beautiful writing & have the time and patience to enjoy it, and you like open endings, this might be a good novel for you. If not, don't risk frustrating yourself.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter; (1 1/2*)Fifteen year old Jane is caring for the five year old Lily out on the trails where the youngster's father is gathering botanical samples of plants and such. Lily disappears and is never found.Jump ahead to a thirty five year old Jane working in a London museum which is in the process of selling off it's valuables and artifacts and closing its doors. She flees London and returns to the village from whence Lily disappeared.Jane has a project she has worked on for many years. She learned of a woman identified only as 'N' who disappeared from an asylum in the late 1800s with two men. The men returned but the woman was not with them and at this juncture the reader does not know who she is nor what happened to her.Jane's story in the present alternates with the Victorian story told by a series of disembodied Victorian voices that surround her. The book just felt incomplete to this reader and also very easy to lose interest in. There are simply too many things unresolved. The central query of what happened to 'N' is resolved but still in the end I felt unsettled and unsatisfied with the read. It seemed very disjointed to me as did the 'voices'.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This literary thriller has an interesting premise. It is two deeply entwined mysteries 125 years apart. The story's main character, Jane is an archivist researching the history of the Whitmore Hospital for Convalescent Lunatics. Jane is trying to solve the mystery of the disappearance of a child in her charge during her teens. She is also trying to solve a disappearance of "N" from the hospital years ago. The author writes in a first person plural voice. Jane and the collective "souls" from the past tell this story. The stories converge as we gradually learn the identities of the past souls connected to Jane. It was a bit complicated and required involved reading. The writing was beautiful. I would definitely read this author again
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    started this book with high expectations and was left a little disappointed. It took me almost 100 pages before I was really interested in what was going on.The story is about a young woman, Jane, who was the child minder of a girl who disappeared in the woods. She's never quite gotten over that experience. She meets the father of the missing girl almost 20 years later and that sets her off to leave her job and return back to the location of the town where the disappearance occurred. Jane is also researching a book that involved another disappearance of a young girl from a convalescent lunatic asylum more than a 100 years ago in the same woods.It all sounded so interesting and like it would be a real page turner, but it was a bit slow and anticlimactic. There was also an invisible force of "souls" that followed Jane around and commented on her day to day happenings. Not really a recommended read, but I was interested enough to finish it, just rare for me to feel glad I had finished it and could move on to another book.I received a complimentary e-book from Netgalley.com
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received this book through the Early Reviewers program. The World Before Us is a little bit gothic mystery/ghost story and a little bit exploration of minutia. It spans three different time periods without a really "satisfactory" ending. It's a slow book to start, and can sometimes seem convoluted. With that said, I really enjoyed it. Reading The World Before Us felt like a slow realization of a haunting, and it is very much more about feelings and emotions evoked than concrete plot. While the characters are all rather two-dimensional (and perhaps over dramatic) they all come together to form something cohesive. If you like magical realism, ghost stories, and rather vague endings than you'll want to pick up The World Before Us.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book was really in my wheelhouse. The protagonist is an archivist at a museum that is closing. I love bookish type people. There are mysterious connections between a missing woman from a convalescent hospital and a girl Jane was looking after when she was younger. I like mysterious bits to things and gothic historical connections. I really had high hopes for this book and I did like it for the most part though the ending left me unsatisfied and really wanting more from the book.A lot of my critiques are similar to other reviews. It's an unnecessarily convoluted plot so many threads it's easy to get tangled. I also found Jane to be over melancholy and melodramatic. I hated the addition of the love interest as well. Not compelling and didn't really add to the story except if you thought steamy things were missing from it. In my humble opinion really out of place. I liked the mysterious bits though, namely the ghosts and the unusual perspective they bring even though their mystery was a little predictable. The writing of the book is poetic and philosophical. A bit of a slog to get through at times though if you're in the right mood it's not a bad thing. I happen to like poetic slightly opaque writing though the repetition did get to me at times.Overall, this is a story about everyday life and trying to get through it and let go of the past. Like life it really doesn't have full closure and not a ton of progress is made but the words and thoughts make it interesting. It's one of those nearly plotless books where the characters and ideas are king. I'm glad I read it and I'm grateful to early reviewers to have had the opportunity to do so.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Review based on ARC.This book has been quite the disappointment for me. It's not that it's a terrible story and the writing is certainly poetic at times, but it took me weeks to slog through this... during the winter holidays, when I hoped to have accomplished much more reading!The plot? Sounds so interesting... Jane is 15 and half-babysitting a little girl (the father is with them, but doing other things and Jane is charged with watching Lily) when the girl goes missing in the woods. Unable to move forward in her life whatsoever for the next 19 years, Jane obsesses over her failure and her devastation at the loss of Lily and the apparent loss of respect of Lily's father William, also Jane's first crush. So she spends her career focused on the same types of things that William (a scholar) also studies, and there is no surprise that their paths must once again cross. Where Lily was lost also happens to be the rough location of a lot of happenings surrounding (and the home of) certain historical figures (the Chesters, the Farringtons) about whom William and Jane study/research/write about/work in a museum about. This location also happens to be the rough location of the Whitmore convelascent hospital, from which yet another young lady, N--, had gone missing over a hundred years ago.So right. You've got the two girls going missing, just sort of disappearing out of thin air, from the same location, and Jane who is able to research both. So various ghosts converge on Jane to follow her around her life, hoping that someday she might stumble upon the answer of who they are, why they are there, and what happened with the missing girls.This all sounds very intriguing to me. But that's not really what the book is about. That's almost more just like the backdrop for what feels like an excuse for the author to philosophize and wax poetic, redundantly, repetitively, meanderingly, aimlessly, and frustratingly (for the reader).Sure, Hunter seems to have an ability to put together pretty sentences, and she seems to have a desire to drop little "a-ha" sentences along the way that are supposed to make the reader ooo and aaa.. But, unfortunately, those moments were more eye-rolling moments for me. I was frustrated that the *story* never seemed to move forward. Between Jane's inability to progress and her ghosts' obsession with the past or the moment (but never the future), it just stagnated. That's how the story felt to me.... stagnant. And, frankly, a little obvious. It was clear to me rather early on who the ghosts were and what they were doing there. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how it took them 19 years to figure out some of the things it took them 19 years to figure out.And personally... I thought the love interest was a cheap throw-in. It seemed to be an unnecessary sub-plot point created for no purpose other than to add some ... I don't know, steamy interactions? Wasteful to me.So what was good? Well, as I said, Hunter is able to put together pretty sentences. And there was a great idea and a certain amount of intrigue. And although I felt she spent too much time on the nitty gritty details of the Farringtons or the Chesters that were wholly irrelevant to the rest of what was going on, there were interesting stories there. Certain characters were interesting (George and Norvill), and some of the dialog moved. So it wasn't terrible. It was just terribly disappointing.This is one of those books that just takes one step at a time... there's no real point, there's no real climax, there's not even really a resolution... But Hunter has presented arguably thought-provoking points made by the characters, an interesting way to look at the world and people, and arguably relatable characters simply attempting to make it through their lives... if that appeals to you, you will likely enjoy this book!Overall, 2 and a half of 5 stars (round to 3 on sites w/o half-stars). A middle-of-the-road rating.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed this novel of mystery, memory, and magical realism. It's the story of Jane Standen, a young woman who is revisiting the territory of a tragic experience: a little girl for whom she had responsibility was lost in the woods near Inglewood House (a now decrepit Victorian mansion) and The Whitmore Hospital for Convalescent Lunatics (also Victorian, also decrepit). As an archivist, Jane is interested in learning more about another girl who went missing in the same area but decades earlier. The narrators, we learn early on, are the ghosts of those who lived in the Whitmore, and their poignant efforts to remember and feel the experiences they had when living on Earth provide the most effective emotional content of the novel. Jane, as a character, is sympathetic but only two-dimensional. The story is interesting enough but it's the existential musings, the vaguely spiritual exploration of memory and matter, that kept me engaged. What it means to live, what it means to die, and what it means to exist -- in reality or in memory -- that is the real territory of this novel.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The World Before Us is a beautifully written novel with three distinct plots revolving around a location in Yorkshire. During the Victorian period this location was the site of the Whitmore Hospital for Convalescent Lunatics and nearby was Farrington House, the residence of George Farrington a prominent botanist and exotic plant hunter. Frequent visitors to Farrington House were Edmond and Charlotte Chester, a London couple whose wealth came from cloth manufacturing. Edmond Chester was an astute industrialist who could indulge in the expensive hobby of collecting all manner of specimens, from hummingbirds to whale skeletons to Oriental pottery. As his collection grew he opened it to scholars and eventually to the public by founding the eclectic Chester Museum.Unfortunately, in the 21st century funding for the museum has dried up and it is closing. The collections are being sold off and it is the sad duty of the curatorial staff to pack up the items and send them off to buyers around the world. Particularly affected by the closing is Jane Standen the archivist. This is her dream job and now that it is vanishing, her future is uncertain. Her work was the one constant in a troubled life. Twenty years earlier, when she was fifteen, she was the child minder for a sweet four year old, Lily Eliot. When Lily's recently-widowed father suggested taking them with him on a day trip to Farrington Botanical Gardens Jane was over the moon since she had a major crush on the botanist/writer. She was determined to prove how indispensable she could be to the family, but then the unthinkable happened. In the few seconds that Jane loses sight of Lily on the twisting trail through the derelict gardens, the child vanishes and is never found. For the past twenty years Jane has been weighed down by sadness and guilt, pondering again and again the incidents of that fateful day and what she could have done differently to prevent the tragedy,If the location of Lily's disappearance is the pivitol site, Jane is the pivitol character. She works at Chester Museum and knows the personal papers of the Chesters who are friends of the Farringtons. She did her graduate research about the method records were kept of the patients at the Whitmore Hospital for Convalescent Lunatics and has recently discovered that a female inhabitant noted only as "N" disappeared on the grounds of Farrington House as had Lily over 120 years later. The shock of losing her job and meeting Lily's father at a final museum function makes Jane determined to solve the mystery of "N"'s disappearance and, hopefully discover Lily's fate.As Jane does her research in Yorkshire after abruptly taking off from London, the plot shifts back and forth from the 19th to the 21st centuries. Jane surmises and the reader gets to see what really happened. The residents of the asylum are fleshed out and their sad stories recounted. The rivalry between George Farrington and Norvill Farrington, his younger brother, a geologist interested in the fissures and caves of Yorkshire, is revealed. And then there are the ghostly presences who seem to hover around Jane and seem desperate to follow her research because they, too, are tied to the Yorkshire location.And, after all this description, there is the problem I found with this novel. Too many characters and not enough actual plot. Or too much plot and not enough action. I can't decide. I loved the museum and wanted to know more about the people who worked there, how it was run, where did the collections go. The Farringtons and Chesters had entwined lives, but I wasn't convinced about the relationships. The patients' lives were interesting, yet little was resolved. In fact, nothing was resolved except the disappearance of "N". I wanted closure to at least some of the characters in whom I have invested so much time. Instead, I felt like one of the ghosts haunting Jane, constantly peeking over her shoulder .Beautifully written, but, for me, ultimately unfullfilling
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the story of Jane trying to come to terms with the disappearance of her ward, Lily, 19 years before. It's the story of Jane trying to find out what happened to a girl listed only as N, who also disappeared in the same area over 100 years before. Jane works for a museum that is closing and she is researching the history of people involved with the museum and the lunatic asylum nearby. She returns to the area with the hopes of seeing William, the father of her ward, whom she hasn't had contact with since the disappearance of his daughter. Along with the living characters, there is a host of souls searching for their identities through the research Jane does. They are all related in some way or another to the area, the museum and the families involved. Through Jane's discoveries the reader gets glimpses into the characters of those who have passed, and their roles in events that led up to a fateful day years before.This book had promise but had too many faults to get more than 3 stars. It meandered, there were too many minor characters named that the reader had to remember that weren't relevant to the story. There is a romance thrown in that adds nothing and leads nowhere. The mystery of N and Lily's disappearance is disappointing in the end and this was a long journey for not much gratification.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I couldn't get passed the writing style.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There are three different storylines going on in The World Before Us. The first is the story of 3 people going on a walkabout from the Whitmore Hospital for Convalescent Lunatics in 1877, only 2 of whom returned. The second is of Jane's current life as an archivist, a life that is imploding both with the closing of the museum where she works and because of the reappearance of the man for whom she used to babysit. The man whose daughter she lost while walking near Whitmore. The third story is the disjointed commentary of the ghosty things that follow Jane around trying to find their own histories in Jane's work and research, you guessed it, about the Whitmore. There was so much potential here to link the three stories together in an interesting, creepy, haunting, touching, whatever way, but mostly unlinked they remained, even after it became clear that the ghosty things were once patients, townspeople, contemporaries to the 3 people walking in 1877. Mostly, though, I didn't mind that the stories were mostly separate because they were interesting. The ghosty things were intriguing, and it took me a while to figure them out; Jane is a train wreck, and I hoped she would find answers that would allow her to pull herself together. The 1877 flashbacks gave me answers Jane didn't have, that I kept waiting for her to find. Ultimately though, the fact that the stories didn't pull together, SO MANY THINGS were left unanswered ruined the end for me. I was right there with this book until about the last 20-30 pages when it became clear that I was not going to get what I was looking for. And neither was Jane. That was the most frustrating part, I think. If Jane had found a way to live without answers and move on with her life, I could have lived without answers too. But she doesn't. She does not grow or change at all. Also? Why can't we have answers? We find out who N is and what happened to her. It's heavily implied that "the girl" ghosty thing is Lily. There are rumors in town about what happened to Lily. Why can't we know for sure?!? Also part 2, doesn't it seem like all the ghosty things are trapped in their persons right around when Leeson was shot? They're stuck at that age or mindset or something. Especially "the boy." Did he die as a child or are they ghosty in that time of their lives to serve some purpose. SO MANY QUESTIONS.But I still gave The World Before Us 4 stars because I did enjoy reading it. The ending was frustrating, but all that came before it was well written, beautiful even, and made me want to read more. I just wish there had been more payout at the end.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Despite its interesting premise, I found it difficult to engage with this novel. The meandering plot took a long time to develop, and I was never able to relate to the characters. I eventually skimmed through the detailed descriptions since I found them marginally interesting and irrelevant. I lost interest in the ending before I ever reached it.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I am sorry to say that this isn't going to be much of a review. For one thing, it failed to draw me in from the beginning. I kept trying, I kept reading, but each and every character seemed so deadly dull to me that I really wished for them all to be abducted by aliens or to fall into a time vortex, or maybe a phone box , and dropped off somewhen where I wouldn't have to deal with them. Broken teacups, Boring meetups with strangers and co-, a missing child and all of it too boring to bear. I also had a difficult time trying to figure out when I was, and why I was bothering. About halfway through, I decided not to. I did not finish this one. Life is just too short. What I read? Sad and depressing in the extreme.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I received this as part of the Early Reviewers program, but had a very difficult time getting interested in the story. The supernatural element threw me off a bit as well. The writing was beautiful, but the story simply didn't grip me. Perhaps it just wasn't the right time for me for this book, because it seems like exactly the sort of book I would love. I do understand what the author was going for with it's melancholy feel, but it was a turn-off for me. I admit I didn't get to the end, so I can't speak for its resolution, but this just wasn't the book for me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As a former archivist (now librarian), I have experienced for myself the strangely compelling sense of connection to those in the photos and records in my care, a feeling that is somehow both elusive and weighty at the same time, a phenomenon I was never able to put my finger on but that Aislinn Hunter has somehow captured perfectly in The World Before Us. This book is about history and memory and life. Those looking for suspense or mystery, for a plot-driven novel about a missing child case, may be disappointed. There is no strong sense of resolution, no explosive ending. But this book is absolutely stunning just the same, in the way it slowly clears the mist and reveals that which was there all along, unseen and unrecognized.I know this review isn't very specific and probably not all that helpful, but for me, reading the book was more about feeling and recognition than about story line. If you're a ponderer, a thinker, someone looking for links to the past, then you must read this book.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This is a story of 3 time periods. In the present, Jane Standen is an archivist working at a struggling museum. About 20 years previously, a girl in her care became lost in the woods, never to be found. About a hundred years earlier, the same land was home to an asylum where another girl went missing. There is connection between the parts, and I'm certain there are persons who will appreciate this book far more than I did. I found parts of the narrative to read more like non-fiction than the fictional account that they were. It simply did not flow well for the type of book that it was. The other problem with the book is the lack of resolution. It leaves the reader conflicted. There are readers who appreciate books that capture the fact that not everything in life is going to be settled. This is a book for that type of reader. This review is based on an advance review e-galley provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The title, which can be interpreted in more than one way, signals the thematic depth of this book which gives readers a different way to look at the world before us while, at the same time, suggesting that those who lived in the world before us are still affecting the world before us.When Jane Standen was fifteen, Lily Eliot, the five-year-old girl she was minding, disappeared near Inglewood House and was never found. Two decades later, Jane is an archivist at the soon-to-close Chester Museum in London. Research leads her to discover there was a connection between the Chester family which founded the museum and the residents of Inglewood House; in fact, she learns that a young girl, known only as N, disappeared from the Whitmore Hospital for Convalescent Lunatics near Inglewood House in 1877, near the same area Lily went missing. Jane decides to try and discover what happened to N.There is an unusual element to the narration. Jane’s story is narrated in third person, but she is accompanied by an invisible chorus of voices, the leader speaking in first person plural. This collective comments throughout on what Jane is doing and how she is feeling, much like a Greek chorus would in a drama. One of the mysteries is the identity of this group. They are not exactly ghosts; one of the children in the group “thinks it’s fun to pretend he’s dead.” Jane is unaware of them but they can sense each other: “every presence has a kind of weight, something felt: moods and shifts and feelings, a steady pulse of being.” The narrator speaks of their being lost with Jane being “the closest thing we’ve got to a map.” Their hope is that “eventually we might discover who we have been, what purpose we serve and what use we might one day be.” At first, I was perturbed by this “supernatural” element, but gradually realized that the presence and commentary of this otherworldly group provide thematic depth.A major theme is that of the interplay of past and present. Jane’s sections are narrated in the present tense, but it is obvious that she is very much defined by her past. The trauma of Lily’s disappearance has had lasting effects. As an archivist, she has an intense relationship with the past: “so much can be recreated; all the bits and snippets – the receipts for roses, inventories tucked into books, even sherry glasses or cigar boxes or the worn clasp on a velvet band – are enough to conjure whole lives.” Gradually it becomes clearer who the unseen presences were; it seems almost as if they were revived by Jane when she began her research: “This is why we’re here: because Jane thinks about us almost as much as she thinks about herself, because the distance between her life and ours is not as great as with others.” “The living only see what’s useful” and so tend to disregard much. Like Jane, when she visited the cave paintings at Font-de-Gaume and didn’t realize she had been “surrounded” by drawings, we are surrounded by the past. In the end perhaps it is best to think of the chorus as a reminder of past lives who “are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” Perhaps those who lived in the world before us now have “a different way of relating to the world, another mode of being,” another way of seeing the world before us.Besides the unique narrative technique, there is also the inconclusiveness of the ending that will discomfit some readers. There are several unanswered questions. I don’t like unnecessary loose ends, but the ending of this novel is appropriate to its subject matter. Who knows what ripples into the future, Janes present and past will have. Thus the closing sentence is wonderful: “And across the road the clock tower strikes six o’clock – a strong brass chord – and a chorus of bells follows.”The book is beautifully written; it possesses strong lyrical qualities. At the same time, it examines serious themes for the reader to contemplate. Readers have reasons to read it more than once. Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    THE WORLD BEFORE US wasn’t my cup of tea, unfortunately. After reading the blurb, I was expecting the book to be about Jane (or someone) solving the mystery of Lily’s disappearance, and figuring out how it was connected to the Victorian woman who went missing. Nope, not at all. While some questions were answered, the ending was unsatisfying.The language and descriptions in the story were beautiful, and that probably kept me reading. I also enjoyed that the story was told by a collective “we,” and it takes a while to figure out who is included in the group. It seemed like a lengthy book, with much of the story taking place during the later Victorian years. I think it probably rambled on too long in the historical parts, while the “Lily” mystery was neglected.Intriguing premise and lovely writing, though the lack of resolution in the end was disappointing.Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The World Before UsBy: Aislinn Hunter Pages. 432Published by HogarthCopy Courtesy of Goodreads First ReadsReviewed by: tkA ghost story…Maybe.A unique blend of present day investigation into the past, and intelligent ghosts/entities that lived at the Whitmore Hospital for Convalescent Lunatics 1877. Jane Standen has no idea that they are following her, but they have a very strong idea that she will lead them to the memories they seek. Who are they , and why are they here.I did have a bit of a difficult time following in the beginning of this story. I had no real idea what it entailed. A few minutes on the internet and I my questions were more, or less answered. I must say I feel it originally read like a Jane Austin story, that is not a compliant by the way. I was totally enchanted after a few pages. It has become a very welcome addition in my library. Not a thriller, or heavy suspense…but a lovely heart warming read.4/5
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A complicated book about young British woman who is caught up in her own past and in events that happened more than a century earlier. This novel centers on Jane, a single woman in her thirties who works as an archivist in a small museum in London. She is still haunted by the trauma she experienced over the disappearance of a child she was babysitting when she was 15. While a student, she researched records from the 1870s the manor house and the mental asylum near where the girl was lost. As her museum is closing due lack of funding, she returns to north England to explore what happened there in her own past and a century earlier, gradually making sense out of scattered clues and insights. In the process she begins to recreate herself.The World Before Us moves back and forth in time and space and involves a large cast of characters. The most unique aspect of her writing is a cluster of undefined presences who provide some of narration of the book. Somehow dependent on Jane, they comment on present and past events as a collective “we.” They themselves do not know who they are or have been or why they see Jane as critical to their own survival. Like Jane, they gradually discover more about themselves as they explore the past, but much is never resolved.Hunter’s writing is definitely clever, but for me it is too clever. Some readers and book critics will like this book, I am sure. To them, her postmodern attention to time, memory, and varying perspectives may seem sophisticated and contemporary. For me, this book, like too many other recent books, simply failed to draw me into the story. All the shifting characters and plots left me unable to care about any of them. The second-person-plural narration contributed to the confusion. The book wasn’t difficult to read, but I kept thinking why bother. I like books that are thought-provoking, but his book failed even that test. Technique can’t replace good storytelling.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Aislinn Hunter’s lovely novel, The World Before Us, is a melancholic meditation on the act of remembering. Hunter shows how holding onto the past - preserving it in aspic - can become a prison. Jane Standen, the book’s protagonist, has lived her entire adult life under the shadow of a terrible incident from her youth, wherein Lily, a young girl she was watching, goes missing in the woods and is never seen again. As an adult, she works, somewhat appropriately, as an archivist in a small, eccentric London museum (likely modeled on the Sir John Soane Museum near London’s Holborn district), a private residence converted into a public assemblage of curiosities curated by a wealthy Victorian gentleman. Her life is at a dead end, as her attempts at scholarly writing have stalled and the museum is closing due to lack of funds. It’s evident that she has been unable to move on from the defining tragedy of her youth.In addition to her work at the museum, Jane has long been investigating the disappearance of a young woman that occurred, some 100 years earlier, in the same forest [on the grounds of a long ago shuttered asylum] where Lily was lost. The reader has the sense that, in attempting to solve this mystery, Jane is seeking to remedy something in her own painful history. When I chose this book, nothing suggested to me that it would include a supernatural element, so I was a bit confused and pleasantly surprised to find the story being narrated, in part, by a group of ethereal beings who follow and observe Jane as she researches the asylum, its environs, history, patrons and residents. These observers don’t seem to know who they were in life and, at the outset, neither does the reader. Through a combination of Jane’s findings, flashbacks and conversations amongst the ghostly watchers, we learn more about the patients in the asylum and the institution’s relationship to the quirky museum where she lately worked. Slowly the various strings of the story knit together to a poignant and satisfying resolution. We watch as Jane uncovers the truth and is able to re-frame her own past in order to set herself (and the ghosts of the past) free.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When Jane was 15, Lily, the little girl she was minding vanished while they were together on a nature walk, an event which Jane considers ‘the defining before and after of her life’. Now, almost two decades later, she is an archivist at a London Museum where she is researching N_, a woman who went missing from a Victorian asylum, the Whitmore Hospital for Convalescent Lunatics a century before near the woods where Lily disappeared. Jane is fascinated by the history of mostly forgotten people and things; she wants to grab hold of their pasts but ‘history is tricky’ - it’s not ‘a static place that sits obediently between now and then’. At the same time, she worries that she suffers from a certain clumsiness in both her physical presence and in her thoughts; when she breaks a tea cup that has survived the handling of maids and children over a century, she feels devastated: “A delicate slip of a teacup that has survived all this…has not survived her”Surrounding her and supplying narration is a kind of ghost voice, a nebulous ‘we’ that consists of several different entities who call each other by descriptive names like ‘the idiot’, ‘the theologian’, ‘the boy’. As the story and Jane’s research progresses, we, and they, begin to recognize them as the ghosts of the asylum inmates. They give us insight that Jane can’t, not only in her research but about her own state of mind, her fears and her emotions. The World Before Us by author Aislinn Hunter is a beautifully written and haunting tale in which past and present are deeply entwined full of complex characters who bring the two worlds together. It explores the fluidity of time and the importance of memory and imagination in keeping alive the people and ephemera that have past before us so that we can continue to tell their stories because they are, in the end, the story of ‘us’. This is not an easy read; it is long, complicated, and thought-provoking. It is also not a mystery novel and the reader who is seeking easy solutions will likely be disappointed. It is less concerned with the mystery of Lily’s disappearance than with the effect this kind of event can have on people who are touched even peripherally by it and how it can influence the trajectory and choices of the rest of their lives. It requires both time and attention from the reader but for the reader who is willing to invest themselves in this novel, it will likely make them look at other people and things in a whole new light.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was so glad to discover Aislinn Hunter's work through the Early Reviewers program. I enjoyed her poet's voice, lyrical without overreaching, and her idiosyncratic approach to narrative through a deeply felt engagement with artifacts that open up worlds within worlds. As with many narratives that juxtapose story lines across different eras, the contemporary thread falters a bit—lacking some sense of proportion and conviction—when compared with the beautifully inhabited historical sections. But I appreciate Aislinn Hunter's formal explorations with a ghostly Greek chorus and the honestly won weight of loss in her language.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    While on an outing with her father William and babysitter Jane Standen, five-year-old Lily becomes lost in the woods. The child is never found, her fate a years-long unsolved mystery, and Jane has only haltingly moved on with her life, becoming some twenty years later an archivist for a small museum. A disparate group of specters surround a seemingly unknowing Jane and provide the narration for this long, meandering tale of how events touch and change lives and what it means to live, either in the reality of the world or in memory.The story’s multiple plotlines and lack of resolutions are likely to frustrate readers, especially since they never mesh into a cohesive whole. Despite the hauntingly beautiful writing, “The World Before Us” fails to draw itself to a satisfying conclusion for the reader.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I have to be completely honest, I could not get into this book at all. I really tried to like the book, because it seemed interesting and different. I ended up having to force myself to read the whole book and just finished it almost a week after starting it.

    This novel is about a girl named Jane that is haunted by her past, which includes the disappearance of a little girl Lily that Jane was babysitting. Two similar disappearances happen in the book, the one when Jane is 15 years old and the other in 1877.

    I think the writing of the story was just complicated and it didn’t need to be. I understood it, however, not every reader would be able to. The book is narrated by a group of ghosts/spirits that call themselves “we”. This kind of confused me at some points and it got really bothersome.

    This novel is not for just anyone, it is definitely a different kind of book. I think maybe if it was narrated by Jane instead of the spirits, I would’ve liked the book and been more interested.

    The style of writing such as words and phrases was great, I liked the details that was put into it and I did like Jane’s character. Unfortunately, I can only give this book 2.5 out of 5 stars and I would only recommend this book if the reader really loves this kind of story.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I've decided to abandon The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter. This was an ER book, so I read 165 of the 350 pages, almost half, but I just can't waste any more of my hard-earned reading time! Hunter has too many stories lines going on - a present-day archivist, Jane, who flashes back to the time she was babysitting and lost the child in the woods. Then Jane is also working on discovering more about a woman from a 1880s mental institution who disappeared in the same woods. But tied up in that story is the man and his family who started the museum she was working at before it closed. Oh, and the man whose child she lost writes a book and lectures at the closing museum and she slaps him even though he doesn't even remember her. Sound confusing and melodramatic? Yep. And then, to top it off, the story is narrated by a group of ghosts/spirits who don't know who they are or why they are there except that I guess they think Jane can help them somehow. Sometimes they try to be funny which does not work.