Reviews

I know it says "NOT THE END" at the end, but almost all the threads were wrapped up, so if this is the end of the Chronicles of St. Mary's series, as it transitions to the Time Police series, then it's a solid, good conclusion to Max's story. It's been an honor and a privilege.

musings_of_a_middleaged_mum's review

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adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

fluchfuchs's review

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adventurous medium-paced

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

4.5

henrismum's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious medium-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? No

3.25

Take away: Very long. It could have been two books, but it was action packed.
Narration: Zara Ramm - Wonderful as always.
Normal Speed ~~- Accelerated Speed~~
~~New - Second - Third -~~ Committed
Series ~~- Non Series - Non-Fiction - Author~~
~~Listening to this book was a chore.~~
I'm glad I listened to this book.
I didn't want this book to end.
I could not wait to be done with this book.
Average, but better than anything I've written.

eshalliday's review against another edition

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I'm having real trouble rating this one.

Zara Ramm is - as usual - fantabulous as voice performer (though she will persist in that idiosyncratic mispronunciation of 'wonder'/'wander' lol).

The issue that's keeping me from awarding 'The Good, the Bad and the History' the usual St. Mary's four stars (I know I have given five stars to a few books in the series!) is this persistent central difficulty I've found with Taylor's characters - their relationships. In particular, Taylor's portrayal of non-heterosexual relationships.

I was deeply unhappy when she killed off Schiller in an earlier installment, eradicating the only lesbian couple in the entire fourteen-book series, before they'd even had more than a mention. Schiller and Van Owen's relationship came across as very much paying lip-service to diversity and inclusion. It makes my blood boil that a favourite author would be perpetuating Dead Lesbian Syndrome.

Compounding that episode, in 'The Good, the Bad and the History', we have the outrageous assertion that the central character could just 'choose' to be a lesbian. Taylor almost downright comes out and calls it a 'lifestyle choice'. I'm beyond infuriated. I don't want to spoil any plot points, but once you read the novel, you can look back at it and see just how disgracefully unfair Taylor's representation of non-heterosexual women is.

For this reason, I feel that I really can't rate this title.

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