I had so much difficulty getting through the second act that I posted about it on BookCrossing and asked for encouragement to go forward. I'd only recently finished Ulysses and thought it would be kind of lame for me to quit in the midst of Rebecca. 
 This was my final judgement: 
 I had a bit of a rough time slogging through the 2nd quarter or so of the book (I found the personality of Mrs. de Winter very frustrating) but overall, quite a piece of art--I can see why it's so popular. Would have liked to see more of the de Winters post-Manderley, but that's okay. 
 The writing was superb from the famous first line to the abrupt ending. 
 More detail with spoiler protection: 
 (view spoiler)[I liked how the book started out, but then as the couple arrived at Manderley and the narrator started acting like such a twit, I got really frustrated and annoyed. I stuck it out and started to feel a bit better once Beatrice had come to visit. Now that Rebecca's ship has been discovered, and Maxim and Mrs. DeWinter are finally talking, it seems a whole lot better (even the episodes before this were pretty good--nasty Mrs. Danvers!) 
 I liked it after all. That section in the middle was rough (basically from Mrs. DeWinter's arrival at Manderley to meeting Beatrice and then her conversation with Frank), but the rest of it was fine. I especially liked the section from Favel's arrival to Maxim's confession. Too bad about Manderley though. I know grieving Maxim would have probably objected, but I would have liked them to stay on & rebuild & have some children. Don't you think they could have eventually settled in to a new house on the same property--kind of reclaiming it? I know, we wouldn't have had the "Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again." line, right? 
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