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A review by pixe1
The Heavens by Sandra Newman
2.0
I wish I could find the blurb that lead me to reading this book: I'm pretty sure it was from a list of books that were "under appreciated" where individuals wrote a book they loved that they wished had been more widely read. What I remember is that this was described as being "ambitious" and that the author manages to pull off something that other authors wouldn't even attempt. I disagree, because I'm not sure she managed to pull something off.
This is the second time travel book I've read this year that deals with the Great Man theory, and out of a non-representative sample of two books that were just middle of the road for me, it seems safe to say that it's been done better elsewhere.
Part of why I'm annoyed with this book is due to a feeling of false advertising. There were so many things I knowingly can't stand, and if they had been in the description instead of talk about an ambitious plot, I probably wouldn't have picked this up. For example: I know that Elizabethan era storylines where all the dialogue is in olde English make my eyes glaze over. Also, I hate when 9/11 is used as a late-game literary device. And this book had both!
But I think what I disliked the most was the sheer verboseness of this book. I looked up so many words in the dictionary to try and understand all of the pretentious feelings of the characters and the atmosphere. While I'm willing to work for a good story, this felt simply overworked - like someone had done 3 rounds of editing and by the third round they were just using thesaurus adverbs to "improve" the writing.
Overall I'm filing this away as a book that I finished that I should have abandoned, and the ending was ok but just ok.
This is the second time travel book I've read this year that deals with the Great Man theory, and out of a non-representative sample of two books that were just middle of the road for me, it seems safe to say that it's been done better elsewhere.
Part of why I'm annoyed with this book is due to a feeling of false advertising. There were so many things I knowingly can't stand, and if they had been in the description instead of talk about an ambitious plot, I probably wouldn't have picked this up. For example: I know that Elizabethan era storylines where all the dialogue is in olde English make my eyes glaze over. Also, I hate when 9/11 is used as a late-game literary device. And this book had both!
But I think what I disliked the most was the sheer verboseness of this book. I looked up so many words in the dictionary to try and understand all of the pretentious feelings of the characters and the atmosphere. While I'm willing to work for a good story, this felt simply overworked - like someone had done 3 rounds of editing and by the third round they were just using thesaurus adverbs to "improve" the writing.
Overall I'm filing this away as a book that I finished that I should have abandoned, and the ending was ok but just ok.