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A review by bhnmt61
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
3.0
This book falls firmly in the category of well-written, beautifully plotted, fully imagined, and NOT for me. I loved the first half of this book— the setup with orphaned Lazlo living in a library and raised by librarians? Blue gods living in a floating citadel above a ravaged city? My wheelhouse.
But by the end it was so melodramatic and so over-wrought that to my surprise, I don’t think I’ll read the sequel, even though I bought it already when I was enjoying the first half so much.
Here is a typical sentence: “To have been granted so tiny a taste of the nectar of her mouth, and so brief a brush with the velvet of her lips was unspeakable cruelty.” And there are dozens more just like that, in fact that one is pretty tame compared to some later purple prose. I did a lot of skimming toward the end. Lots of skimming.
Disappointing. Maybe I’m just too old for a book like this. She gets five (or six or ten) stars for the first half, two stars for the second half—I’m averaging it out to three.
But by the end it was so melodramatic and so over-wrought that to my surprise, I don’t think I’ll read the sequel, even though I bought it already when I was enjoying the first half so much.
Here is a typical sentence: “To have been granted so tiny a taste of the nectar of her mouth, and so brief a brush with the velvet of her lips was unspeakable cruelty.” And there are dozens more just like that, in fact that one is pretty tame compared to some later purple prose. I did a lot of skimming toward the end. Lots of skimming.
Disappointing. Maybe I’m just too old for a book like this. She gets five (or six or ten) stars for the first half, two stars for the second half—I’m averaging it out to three.