"It takes a man, a good man, to know how to manage a woman who has made her bed amongst stones."

While I did enjoy this one, I was never completely drawn into Agnes' story. I had expected to understand and feel pity or sadness for her plight. But I did love and credit the author with the ambiguity she did show us. Agnes is the perfect character for this plight. She isn't perfect and she does show her rage, her jealousy and her fits. She's smart to boot, so smart others worry about what she knows - that she might be a witch.

Agnes is also the perfect sad character to be drawn into a murder. Do you know her role? Do you think she's a victim or the vile mastermind they have painted of her?

Only Natan knows, and he's not talking. ( )

. Just finished reading this book and reading the book as opposed to listening to it really did enhance the experience for me and I upped my rating to 5 stars. Great book.

Reading this for the second time. I previously listened to this as an audio book and while the audio version is excellent I wanted to read this as I think it will enhance the experience even more.

Burial Rites is the extraordinary haunting debut novel by Hannah Kent an Australian Writer. This book is set in Iceland in 1829 and tells the story of Agnes Magnusdottir who was found guilty of murdering her employer as he slept. She was condemned to death. She was the last person to be public executed in Iceland and this book is based on true events.

I read an interview with the author and she spent two years researching this story and the back round information to this story benefits greatly from this research as not only do we learn the what happened to Agnes we learn about a place, its peoples the customs and traditions or the time, their religious beliefs and the beautiful and harrowing landscape is described so well that you get a wonderful sense of time and place from Kent's writing. This is something I appreciate in a story as it enhances the book and the reader learns something about a place and time with which they may not be familiar.

Kent's powerful and beautiful prose takes a story that could have been depressing and gives it a wonderful haunting feel to it and reminded me of the feeling I had when I read Wuthering Heights. I loved the tone of the story and as I listened to this as an audio book, the narration was perfect for the story and really made an excellent audio book. I especially enjoyed the pronunciation of surnames of people and places in the story and the explanation that was at the beginning of the book. I am not a big fan of audio books as I much prefer to read a book but the narrator really was excellent. I will probably buy the paperback version someday just to read it again.

I loved how the author gives you the story from different points of view and you find yourself immersed in Agnes telling of her story as imagined by the author. I think I can see how Hannah Kent was so taken with Agnes and the events of 1829.

Burial rites is a thought provoking and deeply moving story and I would highly recommend it but it may not please everybody as it is not an uplifting story and some may find it rather dark.
I think it would make an excellent book club read as there is plenty to discuss. ( )

Just finished reading Burial Rites for the 3rd time (Book Club Choice) and its still manages to pack a punch third time around. This is one of my 10 ten favourite books as it is just so well written and so atmospheric.

Burial Rites is the extraordinary haunting debut novel by Hannah Kent an Australian Writer. This book is set in Iceland in 1829 and tells the story of Agnes Magnusdottir who was found guilty of murdering her employer as he slept. She was condemned to death. She was the last person to be public executed in Iceland and this book is based on true events.

I read an interview with the author and she spent two years researching this story and the back round information to this story benefits greatly from this research as not only do we learn the what happened to Agnes we learn about a place, its peoples the customs and traditions or the time, their religious beliefs and the beautiful and harrowing landscape is described so well that you get a wonderful sense of time and place from Kent's writing. This is something I appreciate in a story as it enhances the book and the reader learns something about a place and time with which they may not be familiar.

Kent's powerful and beautiful prose takes a story that could have been depressing and gives it a wonderful haunting feel to it and reminded me of the feeling I had when I read Wuthering Heights. I loved the tone of the story and as I listened to this as an audio book, the narration was perfect for the story and really made an excellent audio book. I especially enjoyed the pronunciation of surnames of people and places in the story and the explanation that was at the beginning of the book. I am not a big fan of audio books as I much prefer to read a book but the narrator really was excellent. I will probably buy the paperback version someday just to read it again.

I loved how the author gives you the story from different points of view and you find yourself immersed in Agnes telling of her story as imagined by the author. I think I can see how Hannah Kent was so taken with Agnes and the events of 1829.

Burial rites is a thought provoking and deeply moving story and I would highly recommend it but it may not please everybody as it is not an uplifting story and some may find it rather dark.
It made a terrific book club read as plenty to discuss and very thought provoking.

I have also read [b:The Good People|29248613|The Good People|Hannah Kent|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1467899607s/29248613.jpg|49494722] by [a:Hannah Kent|6569504|Hannah Kent|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1470708527p2/6569504.jpg][b:The Good People|29248613|The Good People|Hannah Kent|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1467899607s/29248613.jpg|49494722] and rated it 3 stars. ( )

2nd time reading (for a Book group), interval of about 7 years. Found it even better the 2nd time round. Very atmospheric, plays with your emotions. A very bleak setting, you can feel the bitter wind, and biting cold. I'd forgotten it was based on a true story, it was interesting to look up some background on Iceland's capital punishment history, and its relations with Denmark. ( )

***NO SPOILERS***

Based on true events that took place in 1829, this re-creation of the last days of murderer Agnes Magnúsdóttir is impressively written but plods along most of the time and is overwhelmingly dreary. Burial Rites is passively told, with Agnes telling a priest and the family she lives with about the murder while awaiting execution.

I was often impatient with this book. Agnes is reticent and talks for too long about subjects other than the crime, such as her childhood and one of the victims. On the latter point I was especially frustrated that for most of the story she wouldn’t say whether she was romantically involved with that particular victim. Interspersed with this reminiscing is the present-day narrative, which is description of her day-to-day life helping with farm chores.

The setting is a dismal, cold Iceland, portrayed as a truly wretched place to live. This is fine—it’s the reality of this place—but author Hannah Kent hammered home the point repeatedly.

The story picks up considerably a little more than halfway through, when Agnes finally gets to the heart of the matter and reveals all. Much more dialogue and action enters the story, and the victims and perpetrators come to dramatic life. Agnes also seems to wake up in the present-day narrative.

Agnes is hard to connect with emotionally, though. In part this is because Burial Rites is so passively told, but more so because Agnes is so detached a figure that it’s hard to feel anything for her beyond a superficial pity. Her backstory is tragic, and she carries that sadness with her so that she’s nothing more than a flat, melancholy character. When Agnes’s execution day arrives, although Kent tried valiantly to make the scene highly emotional, the impact is muted.

Kent’s writing is elegant and beautiful, notably lacking in any self-consciousness or pretension. It’s the main reason to read Burial Rites. There’s nothing so special about Agnes Magnúsdóttir. The crime isn’t interesting nor is the fact that she was the last woman beheaded in Iceland. It’s the way Kent told this tale that elevates it. She calls Burial Rites her “love letter to Iceland,” and I’m sure Iceland is proud that such a gifted writer was the one who wrote it.

(On a side note, my edition contains an author’s note in which Kent explained how she came to write Burial Rites, plus an author interview. These are fascinating, and I recommend reading them.) ( )