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A review by littlecornerreads
Napoleon's Last Island by Thomas Keneally
1.0
I feel like you can't go to Europe and not get excited about history because it's literally all around you. Well, you if you don't want to feed that excitement, just read this book, and it'll completely kill any desire you had to learn more about European history.
This book is ridiculously long. It's probably 300 pages too long. The writing is flat, the characters are boring, the story has no plot, which all just makes the book drag on even longer. I honestly don't know how (or why) I got through the entire book, but I don't think I learned anything about Napoleon and honestly don't remember what happened in 75% of the book (though that may be because nothing happened.) I didn't care about anyone or any thing that happened. Reading it felt like a punishment...maybe Keneally was trying to make his book so painfully slow we'd understand how Napoleon felt in exile!
It really is a torturous book made so much worse by that one scene with Mrs. Balcombe that everyone hates and Thomas Keneally even gives a heads up/apology for in his intro. (Note: if you have to apologize to your readers for a scene in advance, maybe you should probably not include it in your book. Just a thought.) If for some reason you choose to read this book despite all the terrible reviews, you can at least be comforted by the fact that you'll probably quit before you read the infamous scene towards the end and at least be spared some pain.
For the rest of you, let me save you some time: Napoleon's Last Island tl;dr Edition: Napoleon is exiled, lives on an island, meets a family, and dies.
Now go on with your lives and read something else.
This book is ridiculously long. It's probably 300 pages too long. The writing is flat, the characters are boring, the story has no plot, which all just makes the book drag on even longer. I honestly don't know how (or why) I got through the entire book, but I don't think I learned anything about Napoleon and honestly don't remember what happened in 75% of the book (though that may be because nothing happened.) I didn't care about anyone or any thing that happened. Reading it felt like a punishment...maybe Keneally was trying to make his book so painfully slow we'd understand how Napoleon felt in exile!
It really is a torturous book made so much worse by that one scene with Mrs. Balcombe that everyone hates and Thomas Keneally even gives a heads up/apology for in his intro. (Note: if you have to apologize to your readers for a scene in advance, maybe you should probably not include it in your book. Just a thought.) If for some reason you choose to read this book despite all the terrible reviews, you can at least be comforted by the fact that you'll probably quit before you read the infamous scene towards the end and at least be spared some pain.
For the rest of you, let me save you some time: Napoleon's Last Island tl;dr Edition: Napoleon is exiled, lives on an island, meets a family, and dies.
Now go on with your lives and read something else.