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jamieh2024's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I found this tale of Roman poet Ovid, and his lover and muse Xenia, to be quite entertaining almost completely through the book.
I thought it interesting that Alison portrayed Ovid's fascination with Xenia to be the undoing of them. At times I found myself wanting to slap the man silly. His acts of cruelty towards the unsophisticated Xenia all perpetuated in the name of his art made me wonder what his definition of love encompassed.
I can't go into great detail without spoilering the book but its a decent reading experience and I would recommend it for those who like reading historical fiction.
I thought it interesting that Alison portrayed Ovid's fascination with Xenia to be the undoing of them. At times I found myself wanting to slap the man silly. His acts of cruelty towards the unsophisticated Xenia all perpetuated in the name of his art made me wonder what his definition of love encompassed.
I can't go into great detail without spoilering the book but its a decent reading experience and I would recommend it for those who like reading historical fiction.
bawright1987's review against another edition
1.0
I read this book for a historical fiction class I was taking through Coursera and it's probably the only reason I would've read it. Either it's written for suuuuuper intelligent people or else I'm super stupid because I didn't understand a single word. It all seemed a mumble jumble mess of random words strung together.
jflow's review against another edition
5.0
Very enjoyable and engaging read. Thoroughly fleshed out characters and interesting interactions between them.
carlamaeshep's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-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
3.5
literarymultitudes's review
3.0
The Love Artist
I really wanted to like this book. The beginning was superb and the obvious immersion on the author's side with the subject (and her subjects) really made me want to like this book. But in the end it had too many things working against it.
Over all, I did like the writing, style and tone of the book a lot. It has been criticized for its lack of plot and dialogue etc (also the ever lamented "misbalance" of tell over show, even though I do not see that here so much, as with a lot of inner monologues and emotions etc ...) and these are things that I won't miss. I don't like dialogue. I can take it, if it's necessary and well done, but in general, the less of it the better imo. And I also never understood this plot obsession. Here's a story being told, not necessarily a plot, though, but the story is what matters to me.
And I also did not find the much criticized "too much" or "trying too hard" in the writing style. The style I liked.
So why the rather low rating... Probably because after the exceptional and great beginning I felt a bit disappointed by the rest of the book.
Many things were left untold, but not in a good way, rather in a way that left the reader feeling a bit stupid. Yes, I could have gone and googled all kinds of historical or poetical (literary, rather) details, but I didn't. In that case ( and if you are writing such a special book, especially if you've done an immense amount of research, that went into it), why not a glossary. Why not use that research and let the reader know about the details outside of the novel itself?
But there were some other things left untold, which left me kind of clueless, too. BIT OF A SPOILER HERE! Like how this sudden and so absolute switch from lovers and artist/muse relationship turned into something else entierly right after they came to Rome. I could make up some explanations, but leaving the reader on his own here also took away a lot from the reading experience of the rest of the story.
Especially towards the end the book also lost too much coherence for me. It became harder and harder to read and I really had to make myself read the last 40 pages or so.
So this is acutally a 2.5 star rating. I wanted to like it, but it was not easy. I'm glad I read it, though.
I really wanted to like this book. The beginning was superb and the obvious immersion on the author's side with the subject (and her subjects) really made me want to like this book. But in the end it had too many things working against it.
Over all, I did like the writing, style and tone of the book a lot. It has been criticized for its lack of plot and dialogue etc (also the ever lamented "misbalance" of tell over show, even though I do not see that here so much, as with a lot of inner monologues and emotions etc ...) and these are things that I won't miss. I don't like dialogue. I can take it, if it's necessary and well done, but in general, the less of it the better imo. And I also never understood this plot obsession. Here's a story being told, not necessarily a plot, though, but the story is what matters to me.
And I also did not find the much criticized "too much" or "trying too hard" in the writing style. The style I liked.
So why the rather low rating... Probably because after the exceptional and great beginning I felt a bit disappointed by the rest of the book.
Many things were left untold, but not in a good way, rather in a way that left the reader feeling a bit stupid. Yes, I could have gone and googled all kinds of historical or poetical (literary, rather) details, but I didn't. In that case ( and if you are writing such a special book, especially if you've done an immense amount of research, that went into it), why not a glossary. Why not use that research and let the reader know about the details outside of the novel itself?
But there were some other things left untold, which left me kind of clueless, too. BIT OF A SPOILER HERE! Like how this sudden and so absolute switch from lovers and artist/muse relationship turned into something else entierly right after they came to Rome. I could make up some explanations, but leaving the reader on his own here also took away a lot from the reading experience of the rest of the story.
Especially towards the end the book also lost too much coherence for me. It became harder and harder to read and I really had to make myself read the last 40 pages or so.
So this is acutally a 2.5 star rating. I wanted to like it, but it was not easy. I'm glad I read it, though.
jch2022's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I found this tale of Roman poet Ovid, and his lover and muse Xenia, to be quite entertaining almost completely through the book.
I thought it interesting that Alison portrayed Ovid's fascination with Xenia to be the undoing of them. At times I found myself wanting to slap the man silly. His acts of cruelty towards the unsophisticated Xenia all perpetuated in the name of his art made me wonder what his definition of love encompassed.
I can't go into great detail without spoilering the book but its a decent reading experience and I would recommend it for those who like reading historical fiction.
I thought it interesting that Alison portrayed Ovid's fascination with Xenia to be the undoing of them. At times I found myself wanting to slap the man silly. His acts of cruelty towards the unsophisticated Xenia all perpetuated in the name of his art made me wonder what his definition of love encompassed.
I can't go into great detail without spoilering the book but its a decent reading experience and I would recommend it for those who like reading historical fiction.
bonesundstones's review against another edition
5.0
I adore this tale. I could read it over and over.
spoerk's review against another edition
2.0
I read thing because I'm taking a coursera course about historical fiction. The book is ok. a quick easy read, magical realism or something like that. But towards the end, I just didn't care anymore. The book was too easy to predict and I stopped caring about Ovid and His Muse/Baby Mama and His Patron