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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
An incredible fantasy that is imaginative and exciting. The Victorian Dickensian character development is a familiar style for a backdrop to modern themes such as social status and racial equality. What a sublime ending. HIGHLY recommend the audio version--it makes for a much more linear narrative (reading the footnotes felt like work to me).
I don’t know exactly how to feel about this book. I by no means disliked the experience of reading it but I also don’t think that I wholly enjoyed it either - more than anything, I finished it out of a sense of intrigue and a certainty that the payoff in doing so would be worth it. This book is dense and meandering, which more often than not made it a chore to read, but it is also a wildly impressive feat of English literature and unbelievable for an author’s debut. Overall, I think that my feelings of relative indifference are largely my own doing, as I read this book at a very slow pace over quite a number of weeks, and as such often found myself unable to remember its earlier events and feeling like I was flying blind. Ultimately, while my indifference would usually lend itself to a 3 star review, I am giving this book 4 stars because it is just so damn impressive.
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Magical story...it feels like this story could have happened in real life.
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I loved Piranesi and my husband has been asking me to read this book for over a decade. It took me forever to get into it (I was off put by the footnotes and the whole early-19th-centuryness of it all) but it really did start to click around page 300 or so.
Dropping a star after a re-read.
I still really love this book. All the characters are ridiculously annoying, but the dry descriptions and world building is fantastic. The ending is really very problematic. It answers little, and is a bunch of cliches colliding. It also suffers from the fact that, the ending makes the rest of the book absolutely pointless. There is never a proper explanation as to *why* the magic of England goes and comes, and the main characters effectively disappear after doing absolutely nothing.
Were it not for the long hours of enjoyment to be had from the immersive setting, were the book shorter and more "plot oriented", this might have been a two star read. Thankfully, one can exult in the "Britishness" of the characters and the world. Of the two main characters, none are particularly endearing. I believe Strange is written to be more popular, but he seemed to me to be more arrogant and annoying than Norell (a fact actually alluded to in parts of the book).
Many of the characters and scenes are definitely disconnected, which makes sense in some parts, given the narrative style, but over time the book starts to jump around a lot more and becomes a good deal less likeable. This is a period piece, right down to British superiority and period appropriate woman bashing. However, even in light of all that, the fawning of women over Strange (Arabella, Flora) seems excessive, and serves no purpose other than to establish minor points about his character. In truth he reads closer to Murdstone than a real protagonist, especially in his "wooing" of Flora by "bettering her mind" with the help of readings of works for children. Is it period appropriate? yup. Is it annoying? definitely. Does Flora's slavish devotion require the loss of a full star? Given the fact that the latter part of the book has no real redeeming qualities and she's a new focal character, yes.
A better actual plot, or a more cohesive ending would have gone a long way to making this book perfect. Especially after [b:Piranesi|50202953|Piranesi|Susanna Clarke|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609095173l/50202953._SY75_.jpg|73586702], this book can no longer be considered to be the best of Clarke, nor can it be considered to be a stand alone 5 star book.
Add a star if you don't care about endings or plots but just like long, detailed books with magic.
I still really love this book. All the characters are ridiculously annoying, but the dry descriptions and world building is fantastic. The ending is really very problematic. It answers little, and is a bunch of cliches colliding. It also suffers from the fact that, the ending makes the rest of the book absolutely pointless. There is never a proper explanation as to *why* the magic of England goes and comes, and the main characters effectively disappear after doing absolutely nothing.
Were it not for the long hours of enjoyment to be had from the immersive setting, were the book shorter and more "plot oriented", this might have been a two star read. Thankfully, one can exult in the "Britishness" of the characters and the world. Of the two main characters, none are particularly endearing. I believe Strange is written to be more popular, but he seemed to me to be more arrogant and annoying than Norell (a fact actually alluded to in parts of the book).
Many of the characters and scenes are definitely disconnected, which makes sense in some parts, given the narrative style, but over time the book starts to jump around a lot more and becomes a good deal less likeable. This is a period piece, right down to British superiority and period appropriate woman bashing. However, even in light of all that, the fawning of women over Strange (Arabella, Flora) seems excessive, and serves no purpose other than to establish minor points about his character. In truth he reads closer to Murdstone than a real protagonist, especially in his "wooing" of Flora by "bettering her mind" with the help of readings of works for children. Is it period appropriate? yup. Is it annoying? definitely. Does Flora's slavish devotion require the loss of a full star? Given the fact that the latter part of the book has no real redeeming qualities and she's a new focal character, yes.
A better actual plot, or a more cohesive ending would have gone a long way to making this book perfect. Especially after [b:Piranesi|50202953|Piranesi|Susanna Clarke|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609095173l/50202953._SY75_.jpg|73586702], this book can no longer be considered to be the best of Clarke, nor can it be considered to be a stand alone 5 star book.
Add a star if you don't care about endings or plots but just like long, detailed books with magic.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced