Reviews with content warning for Drug use - The Luminaries

As I was reading, I kept thinking how glad I was that this book was so long because it meant I would get to spend more time reading it… now that’s a good book! The plot was especially twisty, the pacing was exquisite, the characters were all dimensioned and flawed and brilliant. The ending was satisfying as well. Such a great read!

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serenspace's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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bill369's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I read this book for The StoryGraph Reads the World 2022 challenge.

The characters were complex, gripping and overall perfect. Nevertheless, I didn't grow to like them. I was more interested in the plot than the characters.

Twists, illegitimate bastards, séances, past disputes and an immense amount of money missing. Contained. The plot is fabulous! I must acknowledge that it was hard getting into the book. Primarily because of the high number of characters and their detailed descriptions. However, once I remembered who each character was, I was hooked. The story has a tremendous quantity of details. I am firmly impressed by that.

Page 480, unrequited love.

„(...) Vykládali jsme nesmysly a já plácla nějakou hloupost o neopětované lásce. A on mne zastavil a řekl, že neopětovaná láska není možná; že to potom není láska. Prý, že lásku je třeba dávat achronologicaljímat, aby se dvě rovnocenné poloviny spojily v celek, v milenecký pár.“

I was hoping the book would end with chronilogical summary of the events yet it didn't. Thankfully, this summary exists online therefore I understood what I didn't understand.

I'm proud I managed to read this book and understand the more extensive portion of it since it wasn't an easy read. I'm glad I read it because it was a personal challenge.

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itkit's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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janet_reads's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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sneako's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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cursedepub's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Luminaries gave me a very satisfying mystery - lots of twists and turns in a very intricately woven web of secrets, lies, alliances, associations, coincidences, and crime. Not everything is solved neatly by the end either, which I liked, and the last chapters were impossible for me to put down (stayed up until 6am to finish it, from around page 500 onward). There is very good balance of appeals to a reader's intellect, sense of ethics and justice, and romance and emotionality. The narrative tone is very pointed in flaying characters open for us to pick at their weaknesses and gasp at their tragedies, yet allows us to understand why each person might do what they did, and chose whom to sympathize with. It's a very well-rounded story, with a cast of characters who are flawed and self-centered in ways that are really fun to read about.

The prose itself does kind of... "put on airs," as the novel is meant to remind a reader of the writing conventions of 19th century literature, to match the setting. In this vein the novel is very clever and very witty, and is very aware of how witty and clever it is. You get the sense that this nothing in this novel is there by accident, and that it's proud of itself for that. To me this was part of the charm, but others may be put off.

One thing to note is that there is a lot of anti-Asian racist violence in the novel, a lot of casual racism in general, and anti-Asian and anti-sex work slurs tossed around liberally. I guess this would be typical of the period and setting. The novel does not excuse the racism and misogyny, but it's very there.

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