View source for Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

{{infobox1 
|title= Wildthorn
|author= Jane Eagland
|reviewer= Harriet Reed
|genre=Teens 
|summary= Set in the Victorian era, this thrilling and emotional novel tells the story of Louisa Cosgrove, a seventeen-year-old girl committed to an asylum and her struggle for freedom.
|rating=4.5 
|buy= Yes
|borrow= Yes
|pages=368 
|publisher= Macmillan's Children's Books
|date= March 2009
|isbn=978-0330458160 
|cover=0330458167
|aznuk=0330458167
|aznus=0330458167
}}

Lucy Childs is a patient at Wildthorn, a Victorian asylum. She doesn't know why she has been committed, or who signed the papers for her imprisonment. She doesn't even know why the staff call her Lucy - her name is Louisa Cosgrove, an aspiring doctor raised by an open-minded father and a domineering mother. She just has to know the truth and she has to escape.                                              

Wildthorn is a sweeping, thrilling, and at times, shocking story of love and breaking the boundaries in the socially constraining 19th century. Louisa Cosgrove is a girl ahead of her time, determined to follow in her father's footsteps, defy her mother and brother, and enrol at the Medical School for Women. Her resolute ambition and sexuality place her as an outcast in society, and as her relationship with the world around her becomes even more strained, it starts to become clear why, as a victim of the Victorian period, she becomes a patient at the asylum. 

As the narrative flips between her present situation at Wildthorn and her childhood, you can start to piece together her life, and I found myself warming to the young girl who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Louisa is strong-willed, brave and stubborn, and I found myself immersed in her plight to free herself and discover the truth about her imprisonment. 

The scenes at Wildthorn were in turn shocking and fascinating. In an era when great industrial and social development was taking place, the primitiveness and ignorance displayed at the asylum were upsetting. Jane Eagland includes a great deal of historical detail, which really helped me to picture the emotionless clinical rooms and the horrifying 'Fifth floor'. I found Louisa's time there an emotional rollercoaster, sharing her soaring hope with each step towards liberty and every crushing disappointment when punished. 

Her friendship with another patient, Miss Hill, is especially sobering. As a fifteen-year-old girl sexually abused by her stepfather, she is treated with contempt by the head attendant, Weeks, who continually contradicts the girl's claims of a miscarriage. It is later revealed that the said stepfather committed Miss Hill to the asylum to cover up her pregnancy and ensure her silence. There is no chance of her escaping and nowhere to escape to. This example of the male dominance and lawlessness in Victorian times is saddening to read, but the book never loses its ultimate hope of justice. 

Perhaps the novel's greatest strength is the well-drawn characters that push the narrative along. I particularly found fascinating Mrs Cosgrove, whose suffering under society's pressure and struggle to find the daughter she wanted inside the daughter she had, is gripping. I wish Jane Eagland had written more about her. 

The only problem I had with the novel was how Louisa seemed to drift through her sexual identity crisis. Considering the context, she seemed to have no qualms about being a lesbian, and was remarkably open and decisive about it despite living in a scandal-dependant and untrustworthy home. However, the romance between Louisa and Eliza is truly touching and a sweet subplot to the rather harrowing portrayal of asylum life. 

Wildthorn is a unique book. It is full of twists and suspense, sentimentality and brutal scenes. It brings to life the inhumane and misunderstood treatment of mental illness in the Victorian age, but also the hope many people felt: that someday in the future there would be justice and equality.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag. 

If this book appeals then you might also enjoy [[Skin Hunger (A Resurrection of Magic) by Kathleen Duey|Skin Hunger]] by Kathleen Duey.

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[[Category:LGBT Fiction]]