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A review by barbarasbooks
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith
4.0
Dominic Smith writes elegantly. There are sentences so beautifully expressed that I had to go back and read them 3 or 4 times. So stylistically this book appealed to me very much. The character of Marty is engaging and endearingly drawn - by turns witty and wise. For me the book was at its best in the set pieces in which Marty is the focus. The character of Ellie was less successful.
This is not a criticism but I am not fond of books which move between time zones and story lines. I like my reading to be linear and become frustrated at being thrust back to 1636 at a time when I am totally engaged in the 1955 story. It breaks up the narrative drive and unfocusses your reading attention.
So, I think this is a fine book, but it didn't pull me in and have me reading deep into the night; whilst it was beautifully crafted, and some of the descriptive passages were memorable, it left me strangely untouched.
This is not a criticism but I am not fond of books which move between time zones and story lines. I like my reading to be linear and become frustrated at being thrust back to 1636 at a time when I am totally engaged in the 1955 story. It breaks up the narrative drive and unfocusses your reading attention.
So, I think this is a fine book, but it didn't pull me in and have me reading deep into the night; whilst it was beautifully crafted, and some of the descriptive passages were memorable, it left me strangely untouched.