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A review by thekarpuk
The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Terry Pratchett had a joke in more than one of his books about how it took horses longer to get going because they had more legs to sort out. Some novels can have that vibe.
And it may have something to do with this being a second book in a series that may or may not have been planned, but it certainly gives off the energy of a series that wasn't considered from the outset.
The full first third of this books seems like the author fishing for conflicts and situations that would actually present enough narrative interest to the two main characters. You can almost feel the narrative lens meandering about looking for connections to put together later.
And the "later' part also presents some issues, because the ramshackle nature of the plotting means a lot of characters end up colliding due to coincidences.
Y'all, this book is riddle with convenient timing and coincidences. Very little in this story seems to occur because of any of the protagonists' own agency, but because they had something they sort of vaguely needed and ran across one of the other main characters at the right time under the right circumstances.
So why did I still give this a decent rating? Because I just like reading Helen Wecker's work. It just had a pleasant flow, and the characters are likable. So even while they spend what feels like half the damn book stumbling in the dark, I still didn't mind joining them, even if it did take me much longer to get through the first half to the point where the conflicts really started to gel.
Good writing is like good conversation, and this holds true even when the speaker may have lost track of where they were going with the story.
And it may have something to do with this being a second book in a series that may or may not have been planned, but it certainly gives off the energy of a series that wasn't considered from the outset.
The full first third of this books seems like the author fishing for conflicts and situations that would actually present enough narrative interest to the two main characters. You can almost feel the narrative lens meandering about looking for connections to put together later.
And the "later' part also presents some issues, because the ramshackle nature of the plotting means a lot of characters end up colliding due to coincidences.
Y'all, this book is riddle with convenient timing and coincidences. Very little in this story seems to occur because of any of the protagonists' own agency, but because they had something they sort of vaguely needed and ran across one of the other main characters at the right time under the right circumstances.
So why did I still give this a decent rating? Because I just like reading Helen Wecker's work. It just had a pleasant flow, and the characters are likable. So even while they spend what feels like half the damn book stumbling in the dark, I still didn't mind joining them, even if it did take me much longer to get through the first half to the point where the conflicts really started to gel.
Good writing is like good conversation, and this holds true even when the speaker may have lost track of where they were going with the story.