The books are both well written but therin lies the problem. Wanting is composed of two parallel stories: one of Charles Dickens between the time his daughter died and the time he met the actress Ellen Ternan. The other is Sir John Franklin, his wife Jane, and the aborigine girl Matthina they adopt in Van Dimen's island as it was then called. The Dickens book was reasonably routine, reading more like biography than novel. The Franklin book -- or really the Matthina book -- was more fascinating, especially the heartbreaking description of a girl who goes from exiled aborigine to adopted daughter to ignored daughter to abandoned. The problem was that I didn't find these two stories worked well together and that having them in one cover subtracted rather than added.

That said, would still recommend this book to anyone and would look forward to reading more by Richard Flanagan.