jaymie_allison 's review for:

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

2.0

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I started off loving this book because the writing is absolutely beautiful. It's descriptive and makes you feel so many things at once. I thought this was the book's biggest strength for the first 50 pages or so. And then the writing slowly became it's downfall for me. The descriptions and flowery prose never ceased, while the story became sluggish and passive. The dreamy writing and lagging plot started to put me to sleep more than making me want to keep reading. There's an entire theme of the hopelessness and pointlessness of war and the desolation and loneliness one feels when separated from those they love. I felt that hopelessness and isolation, but there wasn't enough in the message and the plot to counterbalance the reading experience. The book was too long, the story felt futile, and I felt nothing but gloomy the entire time I was reading.