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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
Fast-paced story with an exotic background. Enjoyed the mix of the past and present events in the book. I enjoyed the main character, Alexandra, and how she grew as the adventure of finding the owner of the urn twisted and turned. Fun read.
Fascinating and enthralling tale of Bulgaria. She's a fantastic story-teller and now I have added Bulgaria to my list of countries I want to visit.
I really liked The Historian when I read it years and years ago, and I didn't know that the author had a relatively new book out. I didn't like The Shadow Land as much as The Historian, and I found myself skimming the more historical half of the book. It didn't really hold my interest the way her other book did, but it is written in a very similar style, which I liked. I'd give this book 3 stars.
Loved the characters and story. Another great novel from Kostova!!!
So frustrating! I loved the story, the descriptions of Bulgaria. The writing was just terrible in ways the editors should have caught. I think the author can do much better in future books but this one showed first time flaws. She had a lot of sentences like: for some strange reason a cat was in the road cleaning itself. That's a paraphrase but the cat had nothing to do with anything and no reason that it should be strange which was a word used aLOT without any further description, when there was opportunity to explain what was strange or interesting she didn't do anything with it. She could have really added to the story with sensory descriptions of events and sensations that were just strange without any description or explanation as to why it was strange, why it was interesting, why it was in the book. Great potential but this was a disappointment.
slow-paced
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A powerful, yet lyrical, dare I say masterpiece. The Shadow Land will be in the running as my favorite book of 2017. The characters kept continuing to evolve throughout the intriguing mystery. I knew nothing of Bulgaria or many former communist countries, and this book stared the atrocities right in the face. And the last 30 pages were gripping. I loved the whole story.