Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
3.5
I have mixed feelings with this one. I liked it but I was bored at some parts and the back and forth pacing was a bit weird to follow. The last hundred pages were pretty great so I may continue on with the next one, especially if the main character is Dino because he is definitely the best.
(also Lucien was the king of very bad decision which is why it did not get a full 4*)
Booketube-a-thon : book 5 : challenge : read a book where the author's surname starts with the same letter as yours (here P)
I have mixed feelings with this one. I liked it but I was bored at some parts and the back and forth pacing was a bit weird to follow. The last hundred pages were pretty great so I may continue on with the next one, especially if the main character is Dino because he is definitely the best.
(also Lucien was the king of very bad decision which is why it did not get a full 4*)
Booketube-a-thon : book 5 : challenge : read a book where the author's surname starts with the same letter as yours (here P)
I really enjoyed this.
The characters were all superbly written, the world building was top notch and the plot was nicely contained while giving hints of wider intrigue.
I thought it was almost Shakespearean in nature with the flavour of Verona and warring houses and I really enjoyed that element of it.
Well worth reading if you like political intrigue stories. I can't wait to get stuck into book 2.
The characters were all superbly written, the world building was top notch and the plot was nicely contained while giving hints of wider intrigue.
I thought it was almost Shakespearean in nature with the flavour of Verona and warring houses and I really enjoyed that element of it.
Well worth reading if you like political intrigue stories. I can't wait to get stuck into book 2.
What still sticks with me a month after reading:
1. The opening, and the first (from the reader’s perspective) instance of Giancarlo’s bullying. Impossible for this not to be the first recollection to surface, really, given the title
2. Looking with Lucien down through the cupola into the King’s shadowy lab
3. Which summons back every scene of Lucien looking down from high places onto shady goings-on - largely from atop and involving the Sanatorio
4. And the King himself, when he and the culmination of his, ahem, great work are finally revealed in all their glory. From gravedigger to majordomo to king is, in hindsight, a really well executed slow reveal, simultaneously shocking and priming you for shocks to come. And I mean, the introduction to the gravedigger was jarring enough to realign my whole perception of the book, of the sort of book it was; I don’t know if it occurred to me then that the grotesquerie could ramp up as steeply as it does from there. I imagine if it went from funny-coloured blood and minor disfigurements straight to the King I might’ve found it hard to swallow, is what I mean by being primed
5. The swashbuckling escape from the fire out the tower window!
6. The meatgrinder that is a duel with Golia
7. Lizards and gender expectations
1. The opening, and the first (from the reader’s perspective) instance of Giancarlo’s bullying. Impossible for this not to be the first recollection to surface, really, given the title
2. Looking with Lucien down through the cupola into the King’s shadowy lab
3. Which summons back every scene of Lucien looking down from high places onto shady goings-on - largely from atop and involving the Sanatorio
4. And the King himself, when he and the culmination of his, ahem, great work are finally revealed in all their glory. From gravedigger to majordomo to king is, in hindsight, a really well executed slow reveal, simultaneously shocking and priming you for shocks to come. And I mean, the introduction to the gravedigger was jarring enough to realign my whole perception of the book, of the sort of book it was; I don’t know if it occurred to me then that the grotesquerie could ramp up as steeply as it does from there. I imagine if it went from funny-coloured blood and minor disfigurements straight to the King I might’ve found it hard to swallow, is what I mean by being primed
5. The swashbuckling escape from the fire out the tower window!
6. The meatgrinder that is a duel with Golia
7. Lizards and gender expectations
