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A review by hegeleen_kissel
Cities of Women by Kathleen B. Jones
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
The premise of Cities of Women sounded incredibly promising to me, since I, too, was fascinated by medieval manuscripts during my studies. Unfortunately, however, it failed to hit the mark for me.
I enjoyed the first half of the book, and especially the chapters following the life of the 14th century illuminator Béatrice were very moving and absorbing. As the story progressed and the present claimed more and more space in the story, I found myself growing rather frustrated and bored. The romance was a quite uninteresting (and at times problematic) subplot that didn't add anything to the story, but took the attention away from the main plot which redirected the story's course in a confusing and unsatisfying way. The dialogue was very stilted and caused the characters to fall quite flat - at the end I still didn't feel like I really knew them. Despite the fact that the chapters in the present didn't really speak to me, I did greatly appreciate the vast cast of characters that were women in academia.
I found it quite confusing why the author chose to include a couple of chapters from Christine de Pizan's pov, but abandoned her perspective once Béatrice made her acquaintance and why she didn't even mention Béatrice in Christine's chapters. I did like the chapters set in medieval France, though, and I'm certain I would have liked the book better if the ratio present-past had been different.
The writing style in general had a little too much telling and too little showing for my tastes and was littered with unnecessarily complex words and too detailed descriptions of every single action Verity made, which both resulted in a quite artificial and dragging feeling to the story.
It is clear that Jones has put an incredible amount of research behind this book which I greatly admire, as well as her view on womanhood and her passionate campaign to put women in the foreground of history and their own stories.
I enjoyed the first half of the book, and especially the chapters following the life of the 14th century illuminator Béatrice were very moving and absorbing. As the story progressed and the present claimed more and more space in the story, I found myself growing rather frustrated and bored. The romance was a quite uninteresting (and at times problematic) subplot that didn't add anything to the story, but took the attention away from the main plot which redirected the story's course in a confusing and unsatisfying way. The dialogue was very stilted and caused the characters to fall quite flat - at the end I still didn't feel like I really knew them. Despite the fact that the chapters in the present didn't really speak to me, I did greatly appreciate the vast cast of characters that were women in academia.
I found it quite confusing why the author chose to include a couple of chapters from Christine de Pizan's pov, but abandoned her perspective once Béatrice made her acquaintance and why she didn't even mention Béatrice in Christine's chapters. I did like the chapters set in medieval France, though, and I'm certain I would have liked the book better if the ratio present-past had been different.
The writing style in general had a little too much telling and too little showing for my tastes and was littered with unnecessarily complex words and too detailed descriptions of every single action Verity made, which both resulted in a quite artificial and dragging feeling to the story.
It is clear that Jones has put an incredible amount of research behind this book which I greatly admire, as well as her view on womanhood and her passionate campaign to put women in the foreground of history and their own stories.