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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Too slow paced for my attention.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I had some mixed feelings about this one. I flew through the first 100ish pages and LOVED them so much I was sure this would be a new favorite. From there it felt like things kind of lost direction and I moved at a glacial pace through the rest of it. Still love it but wish it could’ve stayed as wonderful as the beginning
This book is one of those that slowly pulls you in one heartstring at a time. My heart broke for Esme over and over, she is such an endearing character. I love the historical theme for the storyline, it’s completely fascinating! Where would we be without words and oh how they change and evolve over time.
This is a story that needed to be told wrapped in gorgeous writing and precise, beautiful characters.
I recall The Dictionary of Lost Words caught my eye when it was published and I’ve spotted it many a time in bookshops, always intending to buy and read. A family member recommended it to me and for that, I will be eternally thankful to her as I don’t believe I would have read it otherwise.
Williams has created a truly wonderful historical fiction piece, focusing on the creation and eventual publication of the first edition of the Oxford Dictionary. Utilising her fictional main character, she explores and expresses the lives of the people who were touched by the dictionary and in particular the women who spent much of their lives focused on the dictionary and its words, yet were never recognised.
I loved every element of this book, from beginning to end was a complete delight. Williams brought her characters to life in a wonderful manner, evoking many emotions from the reader. I fell in love with Esme (MC) and followed her adventures as if they were my own. All the characters (both fiction based and real - of which there are many) are complex, and their emotions and relations to the dictionary and each other ignite the audience’s interest and indicate the importance of the dictionary itself. I felt that Williams beautifully portrayed the real people her novel was based on without overly romanticising them and their roles in the story.
If you enjoy words and historical fiction, and especially if you enjoyed Babel by R. F. Kuang, I recommend giving this novel a go, while it is more historical fiction than Babel and has no fantasy elements I believe the two stories hold hands in more ways than one.
A beautiful piece and one of my new all-time favourites (definitely the best first-person narrated novel I’ve ever read), 5/5 stars.
I recall The Dictionary of Lost Words caught my eye when it was published and I’ve spotted it many a time in bookshops, always intending to buy and read. A family member recommended it to me and for that, I will be eternally thankful to her as I don’t believe I would have read it otherwise.
Williams has created a truly wonderful historical fiction piece, focusing on the creation and eventual publication of the first edition of the Oxford Dictionary. Utilising her fictional main character, she explores and expresses the lives of the people who were touched by the dictionary and in particular the women who spent much of their lives focused on the dictionary and its words, yet were never recognised.
I loved every element of this book, from beginning to end was a complete delight. Williams brought her characters to life in a wonderful manner, evoking many emotions from the reader. I fell in love with Esme (MC) and followed her adventures as if they were my own. All the characters (both fiction based and real - of which there are many) are complex, and their emotions and relations to the dictionary and each other ignite the audience’s interest and indicate the importance of the dictionary itself. I felt that Williams beautifully portrayed the real people her novel was based on without overly romanticising them and their roles in the story.
If you enjoy words and historical fiction, and especially if you enjoyed Babel by R. F. Kuang, I recommend giving this novel a go, while it is more historical fiction than Babel and has no fantasy elements I believe the two stories hold hands in more ways than one.
A beautiful piece and one of my new all-time favourites (definitely the best first-person narrated novel I’ve ever read), 5/5 stars.
As a literacy lover, I enjoyed the academic aspect of the book. Esme was a intelligent and fierce female main character. I really enjoyed reading about the evolution of the dictionary and the historical background that was paired with it. The end of the novel had a two page epilogue that seemed rushed. Definitely a 4.5 book.
There's a fictional construct that uses the events in one character's life to tell the entire story of an age. The risk of this approach is that the character can become simultaneously one-dimensional and overrun with important events. How is that they're always in the heart of things, but their personality is so uninteresting that nobody would have invited them to anything? This is precisely the case with the main character in this book.
If the author wanted to tell the entire history of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, perhaps she should have done exactly that. If she wanted to make the point that words matter and that the people who control the words control the world, then she might have been better served to take a smaller slice of one woman's experience and deliver the message less obviously and repetitively.
If the author wanted to tell the entire history of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, perhaps she should have done exactly that. If she wanted to make the point that words matter and that the people who control the words control the world, then she might have been better served to take a smaller slice of one woman's experience and deliver the message less obviously and repetitively.
This felt slow moving, but I loved learning more about a piece of history that I knew nothing about.