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A review by rdlevitt
The Heavens by Sandra Newman
2.0
You heard it here first, folks: The existence of William Shakespeare led to 9/11. OR DID IT????
I don't know what the hell was going on with this book. The main character jumps between her dream world and the "real" world, which is somehow influenced by her dream world, which is also the real world back in the past. Maybe. And as the dream person goes around riding horses and lacing her bodice and boning Shakespeare, things change in big or little ways in the world around her when she wakes up. So she feels responsible for the impending apocalypse.
This is yet another modern novel that brings up a really interesting idea (in this case, it's the question of "if greatness hastens the apocalypse, do we snuff out that greatness at the expense of robbing humanity?") and then walks away from it entirely. It also is like "Oh by the way, in the future we discovered time travel and you're seeing echos of it right now and it hastens/brings about an apocalyptic future but you can't do anything about it. Anywho, next scene."
All the blurbs describing this book use variations of "unique" and yes, it is indeed unique but it feels more like a draft than a solid novel.
This would make an outstanding book club book because of how weird and full of loose ends it is. So it has that going for it.
I don't know what the hell was going on with this book. The main character jumps between her dream world and the "real" world, which is somehow influenced by her dream world, which is also the real world back in the past. Maybe. And as the dream person goes around riding horses and lacing her bodice and boning Shakespeare, things change in big or little ways in the world around her when she wakes up. So she feels responsible for the impending apocalypse.
This is yet another modern novel that brings up a really interesting idea (in this case, it's the question of "if greatness hastens the apocalypse, do we snuff out that greatness at the expense of robbing humanity?") and then walks away from it entirely. It also is like "Oh by the way, in the future we discovered time travel and you're seeing echos of it right now and it hastens/brings about an apocalyptic future but you can't do anything about it. Anywho, next scene."
All the blurbs describing this book use variations of "unique" and yes, it is indeed unique but it feels more like a draft than a solid novel.
This would make an outstanding book club book because of how weird and full of loose ends it is. So it has that going for it.