This book is great, wonderful, exciting, etc. Really and truly! I've read The Little Stranger before, and though I couldn't put that down, it hadn't left a big impression in me. But this one, I don't wonder that this one got nominated for Man Booker Prize. This book deserves winning Man Booker Prize 2002! It's better than Life of Pi!A reviewer has called it "lesbian Dickens" so I was prepared to half like or half hate it. (I love Dickens but the only other lesbian book I've read Night Work annoyed me) Right, so I was strolling along enjoying the story and then BAM! I was shocked by the scene where somebody was taken to the madhouse. I couldn't see it before, I had no inkling that the story would go that way. (nope, madhouse is not a spoiler) Then I was fully awaked and enjoyed the story more and more eventhough I took a tiniest peek at the end of the story.So what do I love about this book?- I love the settings, a dark house where everybody have to stay quiet with a library filled with 'poisonous books', 2 madhouses and a London fence house, a black faced pig farm, and a falling down church- I love the plot, how Sarah Waters told story of an event from two narrators which gave a really different accounts yet fits like a glove- speaking of glove, I love the gloves, silk gown, petticoat, chemise and corsets strewn around in it- I love how it was love that started the whole villainous business (helped of course with a thick portion greed) but also love that ended it- I love the people, slum princess, white princess, big mama, dead mad mother, hanged mother, evil uncle, villainous gent, young man in a dog-skin coat, lecherous old men, muscle monster nurse, silly psychiatrist and moreDo I need more things to love to love this book? I love this book as much as I love The Crimson Petal and the White and found some roots of Fingersmith. Egoist guardian, young drawing master, two girls in an old house, madhouse, whispy pale girl. Yet it was all so twisted and re-arranged in Fingersmith and I wound up half recognizing half marvelling how everything could be so familiar yet new and suddenly took off to a different direction... I recommend reading TWIW and Fingersmith together for a richer experience.