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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
Great fun. We listened to the audio book, ably read by John Campbell and Cassandra Lee. Might be a bit longer than it needs to be, but still highly enjoyable and a great listen for an extended car trip. Lepore and Kamensky must have had a great time collaborating on it.
Fantastic novel. It's both a send up and a loving tribute to 18th-century literature, with half the novel being a chatty tell all written by a portrait painter, and the other half a letter book written by his apprentice (a fallen women dressed as a boy). The authors are historians and really bring Boston in the 1760s to life. The combination of tribute to older writing styles, clippings from newspapers and pamphlets, quotes and modern adaptation gave the book a real sense of time and place.
That did not, however, bog down a plot that was two parts romance, one part murder mystery, and one part anti-slavery polemics. I think that Dr. Alexander, the highly-educated British black man was probably my favourite character, but everyone felt vivid and well drawn. Enjoyed all the painting details and literary allusions as well.
Mostly this book was just fun.
That did not, however, bog down a plot that was two parts romance, one part murder mystery, and one part anti-slavery polemics. I think that Dr. Alexander, the highly-educated British black man was probably my favourite character, but everyone felt vivid and well drawn. Enjoyed all the painting details and literary allusions as well.
Mostly this book was just fun.
Perhaps a shade too bawdy, but still really fun. (Not that I don't enjoy bawdy, but at times it just seemed a little gratuitous.) In some ways, this book made me think of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, what with the handsome, roguish Scotsman (a coincidence he's named Jamie?), the 18th-century locale, and the general picaresque flavor of the plot.