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masterofdoom's review against another edition
5.0
Breaking the hearts of the readers has never been more wonderful! This is a book for the lovers of opera and piano music, of Second Empire Paris and plots full of twists and mysteries, of gorgeous dresses and women who refuse to be drowned by the waves of men's history. The Queen of the Night is the most operatic novel I have ever read and Alexander Chee deserves all the praise in the world for what he had achieved.
debwick_7's review against another edition
1.0
After struggling for more than half of this flabby and poorly edited brick of a thing, I realised I no longer had any desire to find out more about Lilliet Berne. A preposterous story with immensely self obsessed and irritating characters, difficult not to roll your eyes at the households full of polymaths who can put on an opera or play at the drop of a hat. With the amount of real life talents Chee has dropped in I'm surprised he didn't shoehorn Worth in to run up a couple of cheeky costumes for these impromptu happenings.
Complete self indulgence, and the lack of quotation marks was pretentious and often extremely confusing.
Complete self indulgence, and the lack of quotation marks was pretentious and often extremely confusing.
mellifleura's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
h4ppycupcake's review against another edition
I’ll be honest, despite this book having a lot of promise, I *hate* when authors choose not to put speech in quotations. It makes all the paragraphs run together and it’s incredibly difficult to tell what’s being said out loud and what’s being thought internally by the MC. The format killed this for me.
rohini017's review against another edition
3.0
Amazing and complex. Loved it. Ideal for music and opera lovers. Found it just a bit too long in the middle.
briecheezy's review against another edition
2.0
DNF at 25%
I know, it seems like too soon of a place to stop even to me. But I just became too bored. The main reason is because of the main character, Lilliet. No spoilers ahead, if there are they should be very minor.
Up until I decided to not finish I was wondering what it was about this book that wasn't working for me. It's Lilliet. As a narrator, she's a stick in the mud. She's mostly expressionless, emotionless, even since the flashbacks of her childhood. It's like she's dead inside, just going through the motions, letting other people lead her from one setting to the next. That's what made it hard for me to care about her, to really get to know her character. You might say "dead inside" is appropriate given her history, but come on it bored me.
The layout of the story also confused me. It starts in the present, and then takes you on the journey of Lilliet's life stage by stage, intending to introduce you to the people central to the story's mystery. The first transition, from present to her childhood, confused me and I didn't know if it was her life or her telling us of another girl's life. Yeah, it's HER life. Bleak. Bleak is the word I used for what I read.
When the entire story follows a trajectory of dreariness and bleak living, I'm just not interested. I was hoping the elements of opera, mystery, and 19th century glamour would add interest, but it fell flat. The prose tried too hard, you definitely get the feeling of being whirled around high society escapades and all the drama that comes with opera, but if the main character doesn't match up to it then the prose overwhelms the reader. I also have to warn that the author doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue. I get it, it's more like a stream of consciousness, but it stunted the flow sometimes (especially with the narration being in first person) and made Lilliet seem even more distant to me.
I don't know if I'll try again with this book in the future, knowing how I felt about what I've read so far. I can honestly do without this story in my life. Sorry to those friends who encouraged me to read it!
PS. I have a personal preference: I just don't prefer to read about prostitution as a plot point or as part of the character's backstory. Lilliet's stint in Parisian prostitution felt clinical and detached (granted because Lilliet's life is detached as I mentioned) and I just don't care to read about it. I don't care if it works for the character or is historically accurate, I'd just rather not. If Lilliet had been more expressive, and not so incredibly passive, it might have been portrayed differently and I might have felt differently.
I know, it seems like too soon of a place to stop even to me. But I just became too bored. The main reason is because of the main character, Lilliet. No spoilers ahead, if there are they should be very minor.
Up until I decided to not finish I was wondering what it was about this book that wasn't working for me. It's Lilliet. As a narrator, she's a stick in the mud. She's mostly expressionless, emotionless, even since the flashbacks of her childhood. It's like she's dead inside, just going through the motions, letting other people lead her from one setting to the next. That's what made it hard for me to care about her, to really get to know her character. You might say "dead inside" is appropriate given her history, but come on it bored me.
The layout of the story also confused me. It starts in the present, and then takes you on the journey of Lilliet's life stage by stage, intending to introduce you to the people central to the story's mystery. The first transition, from present to her childhood, confused me and I didn't know if it was her life or her telling us of another girl's life. Yeah, it's HER life. Bleak. Bleak is the word I used for what I read.
When the entire story follows a trajectory of dreariness and bleak living, I'm just not interested. I was hoping the elements of opera, mystery, and 19th century glamour would add interest, but it fell flat. The prose tried too hard, you definitely get the feeling of being whirled around high society escapades and all the drama that comes with opera, but if the main character doesn't match up to it then the prose overwhelms the reader. I also have to warn that the author doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue. I get it, it's more like a stream of consciousness, but it stunted the flow sometimes (especially with the narration being in first person) and made Lilliet seem even more distant to me.
I don't know if I'll try again with this book in the future, knowing how I felt about what I've read so far. I can honestly do without this story in my life. Sorry to those friends who encouraged me to read it!
PS. I have a personal preference: I just don't prefer to read about prostitution as a plot point or as part of the character's backstory. Lilliet's stint in Parisian prostitution felt clinical and detached (granted because Lilliet's life is detached as I mentioned) and I just don't care to read about it. I don't care if it works for the character or is historically accurate, I'd just rather not. If Lilliet had been more expressive, and not so incredibly passive, it might have been portrayed differently and I might have felt differently.
explorastorynz's review against another edition
4.0
I got completely sucked in to the story.
I wanted so much to know how it ended that I kept the book beyond its due date back to the library (by a day), and incurred a fine, since I had already renewed it once, so couldn't again, just so I could get it finished.
So many knots of people influencing each other and seeming to drive the main characters life, and she lets them. Very confusing to try and untangle, and I'm still not sure I actually managed to.
I wanted so much to know how it ended that I kept the book beyond its due date back to the library (by a day), and incurred a fine, since I had already renewed it once, so couldn't again, just so I could get it finished.
So many knots of people influencing each other and seeming to drive the main characters life, and she lets them. Very confusing to try and untangle, and I'm still not sure I actually managed to.
cubierocks's review against another edition
5.0
What a ride! Lilliet is incredible (though I did find myself a bit confused towards the end of her journey). Highly recommend.
chattynattyreads's review against another edition
3.0
Very interesting story. The layers and depth of story were intense. Got lost from time to time due to the many characters, time periods and story lines.
actuallyjennah's review against another edition
4.0
The cover GOT me on this one. I feel like this was about 12 books in one. It was LONG but kept me interested the whole time. I enjoyed the format and how it all unfolded. Despite some of it seeming rather unlikely, it's always plausible enough and follows a thread. Despite not being interested in opera, I found those parts interesting - though I did often skim through the tellings of specific performances. I do think the book could easily be cut down by a third and still be wonderful.
The male author did a great job writing a woman. I also appreciated that there is sex aplenty in the book, but it is not a spicy book. There is one spot where he describes a ballet step implausibly, but I only know this since I am a dancer. I'm choosing to believe the author knows more about opera than ballet and that all the opera intricacies that are important to the plot Are accurate.
The male author did a great job writing a woman. I also appreciated that there is sex aplenty in the book, but it is not a spicy book. There is one spot where he describes a ballet step implausibly, but I only know this since I am a dancer. I'm choosing to believe the author knows more about opera than ballet and that all the opera intricacies that are important to the plot Are accurate.