Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Excessive self-consciousness meets over-the-top atmosphere, and atmosphere, much like the title character, prevails.
The famous first words are “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” But the wisest lines might be these: “I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.”