A family saga covering the first half of the 20th century, this book is also a coming of age story for a young, brilliant, curious girl. Confronting the reality of war, the writing is sensitive and full of delightful emotions.

"The Whalebone Theatre" is a charming novel. Centered on an English family in the interwar period through World War II, the novel explores the family history and idiosyncrasies, as well as the slow decay of their estate. The youngest members of the family, who grew up in this period, are the heart of the novel. They have different ideas about their future and the future of the family estate.

This novel treats all of its characters, even the silliest ones, with sensitivity. It's not a quick read, nor particularly exciting, even during the war; rather, it's a beautiful character study of both a family and a country during this period. I highly recommend it.

The protagonist of this charming novel set in Dorset is Cristabel Seagrave. At the age of 4 Cristabel meets her father’s second wife. She is completely ignored by her. By the age of 12 this headstrong girl runs around the estate with her half-sister and cousin/brother. After finding a dead whale on their beach, the bones are removed and form the background for a stage where Cristabel offers theatre to anyone interested. She builds up quite a reputation. This continues until WWII when her brother Digby joins the army and leaves the estate. Her sister Flossie is left to run the estate and become a Land Girl, holding musical events, etc. for troops stationed nearby. Cristabel becomes one of the women parachuted into France to gain intelligence for the British armed forces and work with the Resistance. Lovely novel.

A whale washes up on the beach in northern England and the law is that it belongs to the king—but the children who find it decide to keep it a secret and ultimately begin to turn the carcass of the whale into their own little playhouse like where they produce plays, their own little theater. This is a stunner, and a perfect selection for book clubs.

This book moved so slowly and the characters took forever to develop; I lost interest at Page 100 and DNF'd. I've since read exemplary reviews about this but I personally couldn't wade through the first few chapters.

I’m personally weary of WWII novels, but I believe that the writing and character development in this 1st novel are outstanding, comparable to Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See. I’ve been talking about it to everyone and it’s going on my best of the best novels I’ve ever read. It’s a traditional literary fiction story with original and enaging characters. I never knew where it was going next and couldn’t wait to find out! Although I had requested a free copy from NetGalley, I had already heard such good things about the book and was so excited to read it that I bought it on Kindle before receiving notice that my NetGalley request had been granted!

This story about a girl growing up in an old mansion on the coast of England, and how she becomes a secret operative during WWll. I can imagine this, or something close to this storyline, happening in real life. The story is well told and thus so believable. I most enjoyed when Cristabel was younger, however, there are some good moments in the last half of the book. I read a lot of WW2 historical fiction and may be a little bit burned out on that genre and era, so my interest level wasn't as high when it came to the war portions of the story. Still though, the writing is good throughout and because the story covers so many years and follows different characters it remarkably does not feel like such a long read even though the book is over 500 pages.
Ms Quinn has a gift for description. I read some of the best similes and metaphors ever in The Whalebone Theatre, and I related to the main character, Cristabel, which has never happened to me before. I was sad when this book was finished.

I realize that this book was a popular international selection. Unfortunately, I struggled with finishing the book, mostly due to personal matters. The book was not the right fit for me at the time. I do not feel it is fair to review it for that reason.
This was a rare instance for me. I apologize.

Whalebone, a glorious coming-of-age read for summer sands
If you savour stories with magnificent period detail and poignant observation, ‘The Whalebone Theatre’ may well be your book

If you savour coming-of-age stories set between the wars in the crumbling stately homes of bohemian landowning families that explore the affairs, passions and ambitions of large casts of characters with magnificent period detail and poignant observation, then Joanna Quinn’s debut novel, The Whalebone Theatre, may well be your book of the summer.

Set in Dorset in England’s West Country, where Quinn grew up, the novel opens on the last day of 1919. Our heroine is Cristabel Seagrave, aged three, lonely and unloved, but fierce of spirit and sharp of mind. She is stamping through a quagmire of mud and snow, swishing around a stick like a sword, while the rest of the household is brimming with expectation..

“Cristabel’s father, Jasper Seagrave, and his new bride are, at that moment, seated side by side in a horse-drawn carriage, travelling up the driveway towards Jasper’s family home: Chilcombe, a many-gabled, many-chimneyed, ivy-covered manor house with an elephantine air of weary grandeur. In outline, it is a series of sagging triangles and tall chimney stacks, and it has huddled on a wooded cliff overhanging the ocean for four hundred years, its leaded windows narrowed against sea winds and historical progress, its general appearance one of gradual subsidence.”

Cristabel’s mother died in childbirth, and grumpy Jasper is the embodiment of the fusty, repressed, middle-aged upper-class Englishman who, having no interest in his young daughter, has married a new mummy for her. Rosalind is far too young and attractive for him, but all the bright young men who once wooed her have died in the war and she considers herself lucky to have at last nabbed a husband, even one as dull as Jasper. Far from being a caricature, however, there is a devastating backstory that explains why Jasper is as he is.

While the initially naïve Rosalind imagines at first glittering parties with servants bearing trays of cocktails and canapés, she is instead left alone to wander through dusty rooms while the stern Seagrave ancestors gaze down upon her.

In the tradition of a long line of orphaned children, originating with Charles Dickens, who find themselves without any parental guidance and are therefore able to carve their own paths, Cristabel is plucky, fiercely imaginative and stunningly precocious. Ignored by her father and Rosalind, a stepmother in the fairy-tale sense, only kitchen maid Maudie Kitkat cares for her.

For Cristable, the only redeeming thing about Rosalind is the prospect that she might produce a brother. Instead, there's a sister, Flossie, promptly dubbed The Veg for her unpromising appearance. But when Jasper falls off a horse and dies, leaving Rosalind with a diminished fortune, a decaying mansion and his charming brother Willoughby, a dashing war hero, to console her, there's a much prettier boy cousin as well, Digby, the new heir to Chilcombe manor.

Surrounded by distant adults, alone in the middle of nowhere, possessed of spirit and imagination, the siblings love each other passionately, and Cristabel becomes their leader, undertaking their entertainment and education.

And then one stormy night in 1928, a gargantuan whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel. By law, it belongs to the King, but twelve-year-old Cristabel has other plans. “A mighty leviathan!” she shouts to some fishermen. “I have claimed it.” She and Flossie, Digby, Maudie and Taras, a visiting artist, build a theatre from the beast’s skeletal rib cage.

Within the Whalebone Theatre, Cristabel can escape her feckless stepparents and brisk governesses, and her imagination comes to life. She stages plays with cast and crew recruited from family, staff and houseguests, her fame and ambition growing as the novel leads us to World War II.

By this time, our affection for the central characters is firmly grounded and continues as they assume new roles. Flossie becomes a Land Army girl at home, overseeing a German POW in the vegetable garden and stables, and housing American officers and hosting musical evenings for the soldiers – this calling to mind the moment in Brideshead Revisited when Charles recognises that his army unit is stationed at the ancestral home of the prestigious Flyte family. Cristabel and Digby become spies in Nazi-occupied France – a more dangerous kind of playacting, it turns out, and one that threatens to tear the family apart.

Quinn’s writing is not emotionally intelligent but also extremely funny and with an abundance of insight into human folly. There is much joy and misery in this many-layered sweeping historical saga. It’s a take as grand and compelling as any fading country pile and as full of hidden delights.

I quite enjoyed this generational family saga. I’ll admit the first section dragged a bit but I understand how the author needed to set up Cristabel’s background. She was such a great character, so headstrong and original. I liked reading about her time in the war and her relationship with Digby. The writing was beautiful but I feel like the book could’ve been a bit shorter.

This is the kind of book that you will be thinking about for a few days after finishing it.

Here you will find different experiences and visions of WWII through the eyes and voices of 3 children. Altough is a long book, it's really well written, beautifully written I could say, and very immersive. There are a lot of characters to keep up with, and they are complex, but somehow we manage to connect with them.

The character development, plot and setting are wonderful and very rich in descriptions. It's a perfect reading for history fans. Very nice book!

Thank you, NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Knopf for a gifted e-galley.
This is a mix of coming-of-age and historical fiction with a focus on character development. I loved the story, the structure of the book, and how the author incorporated snippets from notes and diaries into it. Act 2 was a bit slow; I lost the thread and was bored; however, it picked up on Act 3 and was fully enjoyable.
The story is not about the war, it's about people and their resilience and I loved how the author kept the focus on people. Some scenes were tense and I was worried, some were slow, beautiful, and reflective.
Overall, a unique book that I will highly recommend.

This book is possibly one of the most atmospheric I've read in a long time. It is beautifully written. The prose is LYRICAL. So if you expect to read it in a weekend, you're going to find it impossible for three reasons.

1. The writing itself will enchant you and slow down your reading just to breathe in and feel the descriptive narrations. I found myself closing my eyes and envisioning the places Quinn was creating. Every single word was exactly right and the visual imagery she is able to draw with words is astounding.

2. It's a long book, which isn't a problem unless you have a pile of books to read and you don't want to feel the pressure to finish this one. Because THIS is a book you want to take your time with, you want to allow yourself to fall in love with it. It's a big story that covers years.

3. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, and each one of them is complicated because, well, PEOPLE are complicated.

This book isn't going to be for everyone, but if you have put it on your TBR list, you should bump it to the top.
Seriously. Find a time when you have the time and read this book and you'll remember why you fell in love with reading. Debut book? I'm astounded. Because if this is what Joanna Quinn does the first time out, I can only imagine what else she's got in the wings.

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Long and sweeping. Lived up to the promise of a generational tale. Jenna picks are my favorite for sure!

The author has a knack for characterisation and plot devices, but the whole novel dragged a bit, particularly towards the middle, and I was in two minds whether to persevere - though I'm glad I did.

It almost felt like two different novels, bolted together in one: an interwar family saga; and a WW2 spy thriller.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

at times brilliant, at times dragged but overall a good read. I never knew where it was taking me so I just went with it but editing could have raised the rating.

Thanks to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. I think I received this one right after pub day, and I was probably too scatterbrained at the time to fit it into my reading schedule. I found the time over my December vacation to do a mix of listening and reading this lovely but long debut novel.
Historical fiction is not always my forte, and I’ve taken a break from WWII books after overdoing the genre. However, I really enjoyed The Whalebone Theatre. Stretching from 1919 through 1945, the book is arranged in five acts with one encore. Keeping up with the theater references, playing a role, whether on stage while growing up in rural England or on a secret mission in wartorn France, is a central theme of the book. I laughed aloud, I cried - this book brought out my emotions! I was so invested in the characters that I had trouble putting it down, even though it's a considerable commitment to read at 560 pages. The lyrical prose also didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the book, helping the lengthy book seem not as daunting. I look forward to whatever Joanna Quinn does next, because this was an impressive debut!

Unfortunately was not able to finish this book. It just started out so much slower than I was able to keep up with. After reading the same 3 pages 6 times, I put it down. I’m sure others would love it, but as a mom of two kids under 3, I don’t have the time to power through as much.

This is a wonderfully rich historical. fiction debut!

Chirstabel Seagrave's life is one tragedy after another. Her mother dies during child birth and her father dies in an accident when she is a small child.
Flossie is born to Christabel's stepmother and her father shortly before his death.
Digby is Christabel's cousin and is the child of her step-mother and uncle.

A whale beaches near their house in 1928 and they decide to use the ribs as a stage for the plays they put on with all the people visiting their house. Christa produces the plays and finds people to be in her productions.

This is a sweeping tail of coming of age for the 3 Seagrave children and their differing experiences during WWII. There is wonderful character development and setting and plot are very rich in their descriptions as well.

I look forward to more from Joanna Quinn!

I received a copy via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. Thanks to the publisher and author.
The Whalebone Theatre largely feels like a coming of age tale. Christabel is a strong willed young girl in post WWI when her father remarries in hopes of providing an heir for his estate. Eventually, more children are born, her father dies and she is left in the care of her step mother … who marries her uncle and maintains ownership of the estate. As the years pass, the children grow, visitors come and go, artists stay on the property, etc.
The book feels (and is) very detailed. Sometimes, it was easy to feel that nothing was happening even though LOTS of day to day “things” were being described in detail. This resulted in the plot feeling like it crawled along for me.
People who love period pieces, atmosphere and coming of age should give it a chance as it seems to be well researched with a very endearing main character.