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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
I read this book years ago and completely forgot I even owned it. Overall, I enjoyed it. As I was re-reading, some of the stuff came back to me, but I was surprised at how much of the book was still... well, a surprise.
So, my likes for this book.
1. The suspense -- this book does a good job of keeping you interested in the mystery surrounding the glass and Lin's family.
2. (for the most part) Lin's narration -- there were some parts I didn't like about her voice as the narrator of the novel, but overall, I enjoyed it. There were points where I was very sympathetic to her as the protagonist.
3. The characters -- I really liked the wide variety of characters. We only got to see them partially through Lin's eyes, but I still greatly enjoyed what I read.
And my dislikes.
1. There was... some really awkward comments made about fat people that I really didn't appreciate. One of the very minor characters (who, let's be honest, didn't really need to exist) was almost the stereotypical type of fat (constantly eating sweets, heavy breathing, sweaty--basically "gross") and was mocked by Lin for it. This really didn't help me like Lin more as a character.
2. Lin -- I have a love-hate relationship with Lin Fox. There were times I really liked her and others where I sort of wished someone would tell her off. Mostly I liked her, but there were a few points (some of them related to the point above) where I didn't like her much at all.
3. Pacing -- Some of the pacing of the novel was a bit off. There would be times where I'd be hung up on suspense and then brought back down by excessive narration. It wasn't constant, in my opinion, but there were a few moments that really brought me down.
4. Flowery prose -- There were times when I liked the metaphors being used, but there were others where it felt a bit excessive. I didn't necessarily hate it, though. It just dragged certain points of the novel out when they didn't need to be dragged out.
So, my likes for this book.
1. The suspense -- this book does a good job of keeping you interested in the mystery surrounding the glass and Lin's family.
2. (for the most part) Lin's narration -- there were some parts I didn't like about her voice as the narrator of the novel, but overall, I enjoyed it. There were points where I was very sympathetic to her as the protagonist.
3. The characters -- I really liked the wide variety of characters. We only got to see them partially through Lin's eyes, but I still greatly enjoyed what I read.
And my dislikes.
1. There was... some really awkward comments made about fat people that I really didn't appreciate. One of the very minor characters (who, let's be honest, didn't really need to exist) was almost the stereotypical type of fat (constantly eating sweets, heavy breathing, sweaty--basically "gross") and was mocked by Lin for it. This really didn't help me like Lin more as a character.
2. Lin -- I have a love-hate relationship with Lin Fox. There were times I really liked her and others where I sort of wished someone would tell her off. Mostly I liked her, but there were a few points (some of them related to the point above) where I didn't like her much at all.
3. Pacing -- Some of the pacing of the novel was a bit off. There would be times where I'd be hung up on suspense and then brought back down by excessive narration. It wasn't constant, in my opinion, but there were a few moments that really brought me down.
4. Flowery prose -- There were times when I liked the metaphors being used, but there were others where it felt a bit excessive. I didn't necessarily hate it, though. It just dragged certain points of the novel out when they didn't need to be dragged out.
The author sets a powerful mood right from the start and kept me, as reader, tense through the entire story. I really felt for the main character, Lin, and even when she was making choices that *I* would not have made (nor wanted her to make), I always believed that she would choose to do that. The other characters were also well drawn... everyone was realistic. And I feel like I learned a lot about Medieval history and art; especially about stained glass and superstition.
I'm going to have to read Helen Grant's debut novel now.
I'm going to have to read Helen Grant's debut novel now.
A fantastic book. It's part murder mystery, part fairytale, and all around creepy fun. Plus a little bit of love. This book shared rather too much with Grant's earlier novel, _The Vanishing of Katharina Linden_, for anything to be really surprising, but it was still really well-written and a very enjoyable read.
This is one of my "snapshot" reviews.
The subject: a set of stained-glass windows that seem to be connected with a series of deaths and the rumor of a demon...
The setting: a small village in Germany in the present-day. (Points for a setting outside the U.S. or Britain!) Some of it feels Gothic, though — in the best sense.
Shutter speed: steady. It's not a thrilling page-flipper, but the mystery builds continually as one creepy event after another occurs. The pattern of events turns out to be pretty neat in a disturbing kind of way.
What's in the background? The characterization of Lin. She's not the most likeable character, but she's got a great voice with a snarky sense of humor that brought a much-needed lightness at times. Lin also manages to keep a cool head in a crisis, which I admire since I would totally panic in some of the situations she faces. However, she's very self-centered and hypocritical; she blames her father for breaking a promise, but she does the same thing more than once. What I really couldn't respect about her was her manipulative and opportunistic treatment of Michel (it takes her the whole book to come to her senses and realize his value).
Zoom in on: the interpersonal problems within Lin's family, particularly her relationships with her sister and father. I would've liked to have seen more of Polly and the story behind her anorexia; it seems like it may have been mainly used as a plot device.
Anything out of focus? The villain reveal and climactic scene. I was suspecting someone else through most of the story but wasn't wowed by the actual villain, and the climax became too over-the-top to be realistically scary, resulting in something more farcical in nature than I think was intended.
Ready? Say... "Bonschariant!"
Click! 3.5 shooting stars, and a warning: if you get spooked easily, don't read this book late at night!
Note: there is a bit of mature language in this one.
This book counts towards my goal for the Just Contemporary reading challenge.
The subject: a set of stained-glass windows that seem to be connected with a series of deaths and the rumor of a demon...
The setting: a small village in Germany in the present-day. (Points for a setting outside the U.S. or Britain!) Some of it feels Gothic, though — in the best sense.
Shutter speed: steady. It's not a thrilling page-flipper, but the mystery builds continually as one creepy event after another occurs. The pattern of events turns out to be pretty neat in a disturbing kind of way.
What's in the background? The characterization of Lin. She's not the most likeable character, but she's got a great voice with a snarky sense of humor that brought a much-needed lightness at times. Lin also manages to keep a cool head in a crisis, which I admire since I would totally panic in some of the situations she faces. However, she's very self-centered and hypocritical; she blames her father for breaking a promise, but she does the same thing more than once. What I really couldn't respect about her was her manipulative and opportunistic treatment of Michel (it takes her the whole book to come to her senses and realize his value).
Zoom in on: the interpersonal problems within Lin's family, particularly her relationships with her sister and father. I would've liked to have seen more of Polly and the story behind her anorexia; it seems like it may have been mainly used as a plot device.
Anything out of focus? The villain reveal and climactic scene. I was suspecting someone else through most of the story but wasn't wowed by the actual villain, and the climax became too over-the-top to be realistically scary, resulting in something more farcical in nature than I think was intended.
Ready? Say... "Bonschariant!"
Click! 3.5 shooting stars, and a warning: if you get spooked easily, don't read this book late at night!
Note: there is a bit of mature language in this one.
This book counts towards my goal for the Just Contemporary reading challenge.
Intriguing at the beginning, predictable ending and an unimaginable end. It was just OK -- wanted it to be more spooky and less hokey.
I liked it and I didn't like it. I couldn't get into the story and I didn't like some of the characters. But the mystery murders were well written and had me freaking out.
The premise was interesting, and the suspense and pace were good enough to keep me reading, but in the end I was left disappointed. The conclusion was sort of anticlimactic in its normality, and none of the characters seemed to have any redeeming characteristics, other than perhaps Polly and Michel. But then again, their only positive traits tended to be their selflessness to the point of being doormats. I couldn't figure out why Michel loved Lin, unless it was just based on physical attraction and her being foreign. I also couldn't understand how Lin went from using Michel and not caring about him, to suddenly deciding she loved him. There was no epiphany, other than her suddenly realizing he was good looking after being humiliated by the priest she has a crush on, nor any sort of growth in her feelings for him.
Relationships between Lin's family members were also confusing. I was honestly shocked to discover near the end that Tuesday was her real mother, and Polly was actually her older sister, not her younger sister. There was something about the dynamics between them and how each of them acted that gave me the impression that Lin was older, and I don't recall anything in the text giving us their ages.
Because of the way Tuesday relates to the girls differently than she does to her infant son, I was under the impression for most of the book that Polly and Lin's birth mother had died when they were little, and Tuesday was her father's second wife, and Reuben was Tuesday and their father's son.
Lin tells us early on that she wants to be a scientist and be the only one in her family not interested in the arts. But as far as I can tell, only their father is interested in the arts, as a historian. Tuesday doesn't seem interested in much of anything other than fashion mags, Polly only seems interested in taking care of the baby, and there's no real indication that Lin is actually interested in science. Her whole "I'm going to be a scientist" routine only seems to come up when she's trying to rationalize her ill-fated crush on the handsome priest at her school. The fact that Lin can spontaneously draw the elaborate stained glass windows from memory in a matter of minutes was really hard to believe, particularly since Lin doesn't seem to spend any time during the rest of the book drawing or displaying any artistic talent at all, and she only has a few brief encounters with the windows in real life.
And for all of her apparent sympathy for Polly doing everything while Tuesday does nothing, Lin herself doesn't seem to actually pitch in to help out. Aside from going to school, and the few trips to the woods, I can't really figure out what Lin herself is spending her time on, and why she couldn't help her poor sister out.
I also think considering how much misinformation is given about Michel's brother, it would've been more effective to have Lin actually meet him, rather than coming to the realization that he was harmless via Michel's words and her own analysis of an event she didn't actually witness (when Michel's father comes over to the castle to threaten Lin's family, and Jorg comes along).
All in all, it's an interesting premise, the suspense and tension are well done, but it was hard to care about what happened to any of the characters when I didn't really like any of them (other than perhaps Michel and Polly, the only two I found sympathetic), and the big reveal was sort of a let down.
Relationships between Lin's family members were also confusing. I was honestly shocked to discover near the end that Tuesday was her real mother, and Polly was actually her older sister, not her younger sister. There was something about the dynamics between them and how each of them acted that gave me the impression that Lin was older, and I don't recall anything in the text giving us their ages.
Because of the way Tuesday relates to the girls differently than she does to her infant son, I was under the impression for most of the book that Polly and Lin's birth mother had died when they were little, and Tuesday was her father's second wife, and Reuben was Tuesday and their father's son.
Lin tells us early on that she wants to be a scientist and be the only one in her family not interested in the arts. But as far as I can tell, only their father is interested in the arts, as a historian. Tuesday doesn't seem interested in much of anything other than fashion mags, Polly only seems interested in taking care of the baby, and there's no real indication that Lin is actually interested in science. Her whole "I'm going to be a scientist" routine only seems to come up when she's trying to rationalize her ill-fated crush on the handsome priest at her school. The fact that Lin can spontaneously draw the elaborate stained glass windows from memory in a matter of minutes was really hard to believe, particularly since Lin doesn't seem to spend any time during the rest of the book drawing or displaying any artistic talent at all, and she only has a few brief encounters with the windows in real life.
And for all of her apparent sympathy for Polly doing everything while Tuesday does nothing, Lin herself doesn't seem to actually pitch in to help out. Aside from going to school, and the few trips to the woods, I can't really figure out what Lin herself is spending her time on, and why she couldn't help her poor sister out.
I also think considering how much misinformation is given about Michel's brother, it would've been more effective to have Lin actually meet him, rather than coming to the realization that he was harmless via Michel's words and her own analysis of an event she didn't actually witness (when Michel's father comes over to the castle to threaten Lin's family, and Jorg comes along).
All in all, it's an interesting premise, the suspense and tension are well done, but it was hard to care about what happened to any of the characters when I didn't really like any of them (other than perhaps Michel and Polly, the only two I found sympathetic), and the big reveal was sort of a let down.
scary book very creepy it is freaky and stops me sleeping at night by thinking about the glass demon!!x
Lin Fox is not having a good time. Her father decides to take a sabitacal in a snit about being overlooked for a professorship. Then he hears about a missing stained glass set that have been supposed to be destroyed years ago. He takes the opportunity to chase them to Germany, dragging all of them out of their lives and Lin away from her A Levels. She has to deal with a new school, her sisters quiet despair, and a host of unusual characters not least of which is Michel her neighbour.
This glass is supposed to be posessed by a demon, and the locals suspect something is wrong as the bodies start to mount up and around the bodies there is glass shards.
It's suspensful, interesing and surprised me a few times. I enjoyed the read, there were parts that dragged a little but overall it was very readable. Lin came out of it very well and with a lot of growth. I liked how it ended. It did take me a while to get into it but once in I was loath to put the book down.
This glass is supposed to be posessed by a demon, and the locals suspect something is wrong as the bodies start to mount up and around the bodies there is glass shards.
It's suspensful, interesing and surprised me a few times. I enjoyed the read, there were parts that dragged a little but overall it was very readable. Lin came out of it very well and with a lot of growth. I liked how it ended. It did take me a while to get into it but once in I was loath to put the book down.
http://www.albrecht-durer.org/The-Angel-with-the-Key-to-the-Pit-large.html -- for folks who want to see what the woodcut in chapter 32 looks like...
So good. I love the mentions of people/places from [b:The Vanishing of Katharina Linden|7692967|The Vanishing of Katharina Linden|Helen Grant|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1291052283s/7692967.jpg|10366151]. I also really enjoyed the mystery of this.
Granted, the but I really did enjoy this book all the same.
So good. I love the mentions of people/places from [b:The Vanishing of Katharina Linden|7692967|The Vanishing of Katharina Linden|Helen Grant|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1291052283s/7692967.jpg|10366151]. I also really enjoyed the mystery of this.
Granted, the