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blackjessamine's review against another edition
2.0
Un romanzetto senza alcuna pretesa, del tutto dimenticabile. I protagonisti sono piatti, senza forza, con una psicologia solo vagamente abbozzata; i dialoghi ingessati e decisamente poco realistici.
La zia Emmely, in punto di morte, decide di affidare alla pronipote Diana il compito di svelare un fantomatico segreto di famiglia, lasciandole svariaiti indizi che porteranno la giovane avvocatessa berlinese in un assurdo viaggio in Sri Lanka, a caccia del segreto di Pulcinella (sì, perché per svelarlo non si incontra alcuna difficoltà, non c'è nessun equivoco, il mondo intero sembra essersi predisposto in modo tale che ogni risposta si presenti in maniera quasi spontanea a Diana). Oltretutto, pur non essendo io esattamente quel che si dice un segugio, avevo intuito quel che sarebbe stato il segreto più o meno a pagina venti. Insomma, la costruzione delle vicende lascia un po' a desiderare. Il romanzo è ambientato su due livelli temporali, alternando fasi ambientate nel 2008 a momenti del lontano 1887: e questo, di per sé, non mi disturberebbe, se non fosse che così si annienta quel poco di curiosità che resta riguardo al famoso segreto. Non si scopre la vicenda pian piano, con l'avanzare delle ricerche di Diana, perché le descrizioni del passato arrivano sempre prima. Insomma, la Bomann è proprio furba.
L'ambientazione, poi, sarebbe anche potuta essere interesste (epoca vittoriana, Sri Lanka, piantagioni di tè...), peccato che tutto sia terribilmente approssimativo. Dello Sri Lanka sappiamo solo che ci sono pappagalli, tamil e frangipane (citati in maniera quasi ossessiva, come se la Bomann volesse essere certa che il lettore si accorgesse che ha studiato il Paese che va a descrivere... sì, ha studiato, ma non è andata oltre la pagina di Wikipedia). Del tè si parla solo di varietà Ceylon e dei quattro raccolti, non si accenna a null'altro; l'aggettivo "vittoriano" è usato per descrivere qualsiasi cosa: tutto, qui, è "tipicamente vittoriano", perché fa tanto romanzo storico. Peccato che nessuno si sia preso la briga di spiegare a Corina che, piuttosto che definire tutto come "tipicamente vittoriano", sarebbe più serio e interessante descrivere ciò di cui si sta parlando, in modo da far capire che diamine voglia dire "tipicamente vittoriano".
Il tocco di classe finale la storia d'amore, assolutamente non necessaria, forzatissima, banale e piena di clichè.
Insomma, è bello anche concedersi letture che siano puramente d'intrattenimento, ma qui siamo ad un livello proprio scarsino.
La zia Emmely, in punto di morte, decide di affidare alla pronipote Diana il compito di svelare un fantomatico segreto di famiglia, lasciandole svariaiti indizi che porteranno la giovane avvocatessa berlinese in un assurdo viaggio in Sri Lanka, a caccia del segreto di Pulcinella (sì, perché per svelarlo non si incontra alcuna difficoltà, non c'è nessun equivoco, il mondo intero sembra essersi predisposto in modo tale che ogni risposta si presenti in maniera quasi spontanea a Diana). Oltretutto, pur non essendo io esattamente quel che si dice un segugio, avevo intuito quel che sarebbe stato il segreto più o meno a pagina venti. Insomma, la costruzione delle vicende lascia un po' a desiderare. Il romanzo è ambientato su due livelli temporali, alternando fasi ambientate nel 2008 a momenti del lontano 1887: e questo, di per sé, non mi disturberebbe, se non fosse che così si annienta quel poco di curiosità che resta riguardo al famoso segreto. Non si scopre la vicenda pian piano, con l'avanzare delle ricerche di Diana, perché le descrizioni del passato arrivano sempre prima. Insomma, la Bomann è proprio furba.
L'ambientazione, poi, sarebbe anche potuta essere interesste (epoca vittoriana, Sri Lanka, piantagioni di tè...), peccato che tutto sia terribilmente approssimativo. Dello Sri Lanka sappiamo solo che ci sono pappagalli, tamil e frangipane (citati in maniera quasi ossessiva, come se la Bomann volesse essere certa che il lettore si accorgesse che ha studiato il Paese che va a descrivere... sì, ha studiato, ma non è andata oltre la pagina di Wikipedia). Del tè si parla solo di varietà Ceylon e dei quattro raccolti, non si accenna a null'altro; l'aggettivo "vittoriano" è usato per descrivere qualsiasi cosa: tutto, qui, è "tipicamente vittoriano", perché fa tanto romanzo storico. Peccato che nessuno si sia preso la briga di spiegare a Corina che, piuttosto che definire tutto come "tipicamente vittoriano", sarebbe più serio e interessante descrivere ciò di cui si sta parlando, in modo da far capire che diamine voglia dire "tipicamente vittoriano".
Il tocco di classe finale la storia d'amore, assolutamente non necessaria, forzatissima, banale e piena di clichè.
Insomma, è bello anche concedersi letture che siano puramente d'intrattenimento, ma qui siamo ad un livello proprio scarsino.
mullinscl9657's review
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
This book was a little weird for me but still entertaining. I enjoyed the lost on an island and survival aspect. However the Romance aspect was a little weird.
geckoedit's review
It's excruciatingly slow and all just tell, tell, tell. Too much unnecessary "I have the next clue in my hand but I'm not going to look at it for three chapters because the delay will increase suspense." No, it won't.
I fell asleep.
I fell asleep.
ribeirofrio's review against another edition
1.0
Abbandonato al 45%
Cercavo una lettura leggera, ma non una lista della spesa: questo romanzo purtroppo sembra un'esercitazione pedante, con frasi cliché, descrizioni ripetitive, infodump, personaggi bidimensionali che esternano pensieri da melodramma ottocentesco senza aver il benché minimo spessore emotivo.
Arrivata quasi a metà, la trama piatta come una tavola da surf e l'assenza totale di empatia e interesse verso qualsiasi aspetto del romanzo mi hanno convinta a staccare la spina.
Preferisco tornare a leggere le etichette del bagnoschiuma.
Cercavo una lettura leggera, ma non una lista della spesa: questo romanzo purtroppo sembra un'esercitazione pedante, con frasi cliché, descrizioni ripetitive, infodump, personaggi bidimensionali che esternano pensieri da melodramma ottocentesco senza aver il benché minimo spessore emotivo.
Arrivata quasi a metà, la trama piatta come una tavola da surf e l'assenza totale di empatia e interesse verso qualsiasi aspetto del romanzo mi hanno convinta a staccare la spina.
Preferisco tornare a leggere le etichette del bagnoschiuma.
justjoel's review against another edition
1.0
I received my copy of Butterfly Island via a Goodreads Giveaway, which in no way influenced my review.
I read this book to fulfill the prompt of “A book with an animal in the title” for the 2018 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge.
A beautiful cover enshrouds an absolutely horrible reading experience.
Diana is an attorney in Berlin who has just discovered her husband has been having an affair. While dealing with this revelation, she learns her great-aunt is in failing health, so she leaves for England to be by her aunt’s side without so much as a word to her husband.
On her deathbed (of course!), Diana’s aunt reveals to her that their family has a shameful secret in its past, and that there is a secret room in the family home where the mystery is housed, and that as the last living descendant of the family, it will be up to Diana to make things right once she has passed.
I’m all about secret rooms in elegant English manors, but this just started ridiculous and got worse as time went on. For one, there is little to no reason to suspect that Diana will be good at, or even compelled to, uncover the clues in the mystery, even when they are placed in her path by the family butler, who was given orders to do so by Diana’s great-aunt. If she had been a private investigator rather than an attorney, or if she and her great-aunt had enjoyed scavenger hunts or similar things when she was younger—any of that might have helped make sense of why her great-aunt chose to reveal the secrets in this manner instead of just saying, HI, hon, glad you could make it before I die. There’s something I need to tell you about our family before I go....”
But no, let’s drag this nonsense out over 400+ more pages.
The room’s revelation leads Diana to Sri Lanka, to a tea plantation owned by her ancestors over a hundred years before.
There, the nonsense continues anew, and she has a local, Jonathan Singh, referred to her by a mutual friend, as a guide and companion with whom to explore her family history as well as develop a romantic fascination with.
So, so many things are ridiculous here. There is the overgrown but still visible path they see in the garden, that they follow until they stumble on an abandoned building (not far from the plantation home, still on its property) and are able to deduce what purpose the place served, even though her ancestors were there over 100 years prior. Neither the current plantation manager, nor anyone else apparently has seen this building (somehow still standing after 100+ years of neglect), yet Diana and Jonathan see the path to it which was used by her ancestors over a century ago.
At one point, Diana finds a hidden letter that she thinks is from one of her ancestors. And despite feeling she needs to go home and return to her practice, she decides that yes, the letter might hold all the answers to the questions I need answered, but I’m going to wait until all other avenues have been explored and other options exhausted before I open this.
Why? Because apparently we needed 200+ more pages of sheer torture.
I thought at first that maybe the issues I was having with the book is that it is a translated work. I thought maybe the translator misinterpreted the original German text when she was translating to English, but no. This is just bad writing, period. The characters aren’t well-developed (although the ancestors we follow in the past show more than Diana), the plot has more holes than a fishing net, and the family secret should be (in modern times) no big deal.
I don’t even know what type of legal cases Diana’s firm specialized in, but I know I wouldn’t want her to represent me. I’ve seen smarter potatoes.
No interest in reading anything else by this author. My sincere condolences to the translator who had to read this tripe in one language and convert it into another. And my sincere apologies to the 793 people who entered the drawing for this book, but didn’t win. I’m sure one of you would have enjoyed this much more than I did.
1 out of 5 stars, because 0 isn’t an option.
I read this book to fulfill the prompt of “A book with an animal in the title” for the 2018 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge.
A beautiful cover enshrouds an absolutely horrible reading experience.
Diana is an attorney in Berlin who has just discovered her husband has been having an affair. While dealing with this revelation, she learns her great-aunt is in failing health, so she leaves for England to be by her aunt’s side without so much as a word to her husband.
On her deathbed (of course!), Diana’s aunt reveals to her that their family has a shameful secret in its past, and that there is a secret room in the family home where the mystery is housed, and that as the last living descendant of the family, it will be up to Diana to make things right once she has passed.
I’m all about secret rooms in elegant English manors, but this just started ridiculous and got worse as time went on. For one, there is little to no reason to suspect that Diana will be good at, or even compelled to, uncover the clues in the mystery, even when they are placed in her path by the family butler, who was given orders to do so by Diana’s great-aunt. If she had been a private investigator rather than an attorney, or if she and her great-aunt had enjoyed scavenger hunts or similar things when she was younger—any of that might have helped make sense of why her great-aunt chose to reveal the secrets in this manner instead of just saying, HI, hon, glad you could make it before I die. There’s something I need to tell you about our family before I go....”
But no, let’s drag this nonsense out over 400+ more pages.
The room’s revelation leads Diana to Sri Lanka, to a tea plantation owned by her ancestors over a hundred years before.
There, the nonsense continues anew, and she has a local, Jonathan Singh, referred to her by a mutual friend, as a guide and companion with whom to explore her family history as well as develop a romantic fascination with.
So, so many things are ridiculous here. There is the overgrown but still visible path they see in the garden, that they follow until they stumble on an abandoned building (not far from the plantation home, still on its property) and are able to deduce what purpose the place served, even though her ancestors were there over 100 years prior. Neither the current plantation manager, nor anyone else apparently has seen this building (somehow still standing after 100+ years of neglect), yet Diana and Jonathan see the path to it which was used by her ancestors over a century ago.
At one point, Diana finds a hidden letter that she thinks is from one of her ancestors. And despite feeling she needs to go home and return to her practice, she decides that yes, the letter might hold all the answers to the questions I need answered, but I’m going to wait until all other avenues have been explored and other options exhausted before I open this.
Why? Because apparently we needed 200+ more pages of sheer torture.
I thought at first that maybe the issues I was having with the book is that it is a translated work. I thought maybe the translator misinterpreted the original German text when she was translating to English, but no. This is just bad writing, period. The characters aren’t well-developed (although the ancestors we follow in the past show more than Diana), the plot has more holes than a fishing net, and the family secret should be (in modern times) no big deal.
I don’t even know what type of legal cases Diana’s firm specialized in, but I know I wouldn’t want her to represent me. I’ve seen smarter potatoes.
No interest in reading anything else by this author. My sincere condolences to the translator who had to read this tripe in one language and convert it into another. And my sincere apologies to the 793 people who entered the drawing for this book, but didn’t win. I’m sure one of you would have enjoyed this much more than I did.
1 out of 5 stars, because 0 isn’t an option.
coffeeandapileofbooks's review against another edition
5.0
I absolutely loved this book. It’s packed with enchanting characters on several adventures, vibrant history and a beautiful setting no matter where the characters were. Love, betrayal, treasure. This story has it all!
vivhenn's review against another edition
5.0
è uno dei libri più belli che ho letto quest’anno, sono veramente senza parole.
kairosdreaming's review against another edition
2.0
It was hard not to be drawn by the cover of this book, with its pretty plumeria and butterfly and general splash of colors. The inside was to be intrigue, a historical fiction where you try to uncover the past with the main character.
Diana heads to her aunt when she learns that she is ill. When she arrives, her aunt is in worse shape than she though, and sets her on a mystery that means exploring the old manor house and helpful hints prompted by the butler. The goal is to discover what happened with a past ancestor of hers, and it leads her on a far away adventure where she hopes to discover the truth.
All of the characters were fine. While I didn't understand their motivations at some times, at least they seemed nice enough and helped move the story along. Since the story bounced back and forth between past and present we didn't really get to get attached to any one person before switching again.
The plot is what bothered me about this book. It was pretty predictable, and a lot of the times contrived. And then there was just extra detail or events that didn't add anything to the book (like Diana's relationship with her husband); she could have just as easily been single for the impact that detail made. Or the butler and his input into the journey or mystery she was trying to solve; I couldn't find the reason for it to be so secretive. I realize these were all to make the plot more exciting or interesting, but it just fell flat for me.
Not a book for me; while it had a nice setting and I got to learn a few tiny facts about tea, it just wasn't something that held my interest.
Review by M. Reynard 2021
Diana heads to her aunt when she learns that she is ill. When she arrives, her aunt is in worse shape than she though, and sets her on a mystery that means exploring the old manor house and helpful hints prompted by the butler. The goal is to discover what happened with a past ancestor of hers, and it leads her on a far away adventure where she hopes to discover the truth.
All of the characters were fine. While I didn't understand their motivations at some times, at least they seemed nice enough and helped move the story along. Since the story bounced back and forth between past and present we didn't really get to get attached to any one person before switching again.
The plot is what bothered me about this book. It was pretty predictable, and a lot of the times contrived. And then there was just extra detail or events that didn't add anything to the book (like Diana's relationship with her husband); she could have just as easily been single for the impact that detail made. Or the butler and his input into the journey or mystery she was trying to solve; I couldn't find the reason for it to be so secretive. I realize these were all to make the plot more exciting or interesting, but it just fell flat for me.
Not a book for me; while it had a nice setting and I got to learn a few tiny facts about tea, it just wasn't something that held my interest.
Review by M. Reynard 2021
sofbooks__'s review against another edition
4.0
Sono rimasta piacevolmente sorpresa da questo libro, devo dire che dalla trama non mi aspettavo mi prendesse così tanto. La voglia di scoprire il mistero aumenta sempre di più fino alla fine, quando tutti i pezzi del puzzle si mettono assieme. Quest’anno però non voglio dare 5 stelle così facilmente come magari l’anno scorso quindi si guadagna 4 stelle ma belle piene. La soluzione del mistero in se alla fine era prevedibile da circa metà libro ma è stato interessante vedere come i personaggi hanno scoperto la verità. Nel complesso sono soddisfatta pienamente da questo libro e ve lo consiglio caldamente.