Reviews tagging 'War'

Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr

4 reviews

mikaylanh's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Sooo much happening here… and not in a great way. The concept of this was intriguing because I took several art history courses in college (though I don’t typically read this genre, like, ever) but the writing style was really not for me.

1. This being written in present tense IMMEDIATELY turned me off from it. I really struggled through the first few chapters because of this.

2. The number of adjectives and metaphors throughout the book was just over the top and  got in the way of the storytelling - very distracting. I personally suck at being concise but this book could have benefited significantly by cutting a lot of this fluff out.

3. I typically love multi-perspectives but there were too many this time. It also didn’t help that characters and names started to sound way too similar to me and got confusing - Jules Roth and Wyatt Ross, Lilian Dassel and Art Basel, Ellis Baum and Bram Bakker… I just had a hard time with this too

I don’t regret reading this and I did still enjoy the heist part so I’m going with a 3/5, but I don’t know that I would recommend it to others unless they’re really passionate about art history or WWII.
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rubl_b's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I liked the story and plot, and I was hopeful to love the book. But something about it left me dissatisfied. I fee like the writing was trying to hard to be good and some points left me thinking “did that really just happen?”  Slightly disappointed but good enough to finish. 
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camsand's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

 
Seems  like this book is made for me:

- Historical fiction

-WWII

-Priceless art intrigue 

-Dual timelines

It started really hopeful with an opening scene that had me hooked. But then too much and not enough happened. There are too many characters and they each fit a cliche: hard- nosed newspaper editor, “ruggedly handsome” tortured artist, crazy rich old guy,  sexy psychopath villian woman, etc.. The main character is an investigative reporter who dresses in frumpy clothes and glasses so no one knows she’s hot until she gets dressed up. You can tell that a lot of effort went into the writing, but it just didn’t gel for me. I get the feeling this was written to become a Netflix/HBO Max series. 
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kimveach's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I love it when historical fiction is the basis for a contemporary thriller.
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