Reviews

Not as good as Ragtime. I thought about Dissident Gardens a lot while reading this. The more I read about the Counterculture the more bummed out I am, but I'm not complaining.

taisie22's review against another edition

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3.0

The Book of Daniel is Doctorow's highly regarded fictional story of the Rosenbergs who were executed for spying in the 1950s. This is the first book of his that I've read and I'm interested in the subject matter, so I gave it a try. It's taken me a long time to get through it; the style is not something I really appreciate and I found a lot of the story inaccessible. I'm also somewhat of a conformist as a reader so I want stylistic choices to be meaningful. For example, I once read a lengthy book without much punctuation. After I got used to it, I enjoyed it. It helped the flow and made the story lyrical (the author was a poet). In The Book of Daniel, the author often switches time frames (no problem with that) but tenses within the same paragraph. Sometimes it's in third person and sometimes first, for no particular reason I could see. It reminded me of Wolf Hall, another book whose subject matter I found very interesting but was stylistically inaccessible.
I guess what I'm trying to say that while I enjoyed parts of this book, it wasn't really my cup of tea.

hplatter's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

febyidrus's review against another edition

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4.0

A demanding novel, but one that's definitely worth working through and reading again.

glassglassmadeof's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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