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A review by themily394
Da Vinci's Tiger by L.M. Elliott
2.0
This had such promise when I started it, but it turned out to be incredibly boring. Honestly, it was so close to getting a one star rating for me and I hardly ever hand out one star ratings!
The premise is fantastic - it revolves around art, it's historical fiction, it's the story of a subject from one of da Vinci's paintings. I was excited to read this, especially with the opening line of, "I beg your pardon, I am a mountain tiger." The following 273 pages did not live up to it's opening, though.
What saved this book from a one star rating is how incredibly well researched everything was and the fantastic descriptions and conversation of art. Truly, both of those things were amazing and I was impressed. However, it felt more like I was being TOLD all these things rather than shown. I feel like this would be a good book to read for school if a teacher is looking for a more interesting way for their students to learn about this topic. It felt like I was reading a sort of history book that bored me rather than a historical fiction novel.
With those good things aside, I have a hard time finding anything else I liked. The characters were boring and I didn't care much about what happened to any of them at the end and the story dragged on with very little plot and hardly any tension in anything that happened. I haven't read much historical fiction before, but I'm glad this isn't the first I've read because this novel doesn't make me want to read more.
I don't think I'll find myself recommending this to anyone. Those who have a lot of interest in this era or da Vinci and the painting referenced in this story may enjoy this, but even that I'm not so sure of.
The premise is fantastic - it revolves around art, it's historical fiction, it's the story of a subject from one of da Vinci's paintings. I was excited to read this, especially with the opening line of, "I beg your pardon, I am a mountain tiger." The following 273 pages did not live up to it's opening, though.
What saved this book from a one star rating is how incredibly well researched everything was and the fantastic descriptions and conversation of art. Truly, both of those things were amazing and I was impressed. However, it felt more like I was being TOLD all these things rather than shown. I feel like this would be a good book to read for school if a teacher is looking for a more interesting way for their students to learn about this topic. It felt like I was reading a sort of history book that bored me rather than a historical fiction novel.
With those good things aside, I have a hard time finding anything else I liked. The characters were boring and I didn't care much about what happened to any of them at the end and the story dragged on with very little plot and hardly any tension in anything that happened. I haven't read much historical fiction before, but I'm glad this isn't the first I've read because this novel doesn't make me want to read more.
I don't think I'll find myself recommending this to anyone. Those who have a lot of interest in this era or da Vinci and the painting referenced in this story may enjoy this, but even that I'm not so sure of.