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mayelaam 's review for:
The Shadow Land
by Elizabeth Kostova
The description of this book sounded right up my alley, historic novel meets contemporary mystery. However, this book felt discombobulated. It actually took me over four months to read it. I started it and put it down about five times. The beginning is quite slow, once I forced myself past the first 8 or so chapters, it went much faster.
The present plotline definitely needed the past one for the book to work but despite the lengthy length of this novel, the switching POVs made it hard for me to care much about any of the characters, present or past. I understand that certain POVs make you feel closer to the story, but there were so many first person POVs that it had the opposite effect for me. None of the voices were unique enough to stand out.
The info-dumping was strong in this book. Yes, it's part historical novel and thus needs a lot of context and description but I think the book could have been about 100 pages shorter, had it been more carefully edited. The present storyline felt very circular by the end, it was just a lot of pointless running and chasing. Tighter editing would have made the sense of urgency really pop.
The twist at the end, well it was easily foreseen from about half the book, both the political one and the one about one of the characters' parentage. The convenient ending of the villain felt, well, too convenient, too easy. It fell flat with me.
What did I like about the book? Elizabeth Kostova is definitely a talented writer, her descriptions can be very vivid, even if sometimes her prose is too purple. I loved learning about a dark period in history of a country we don't often read about.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, in the sense that it isn't a bad book by any means, but it is not a must.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The present plotline definitely needed the past one for the book to work but despite the lengthy length of this novel, the switching POVs made it hard for me to care much about any of the characters, present or past. I understand that certain POVs make you feel closer to the story, but there were so many first person POVs that it had the opposite effect for me. None of the voices were unique enough to stand out.
The info-dumping was strong in this book. Yes, it's part historical novel and thus needs a lot of context and description but I think the book could have been about 100 pages shorter, had it been more carefully edited. The present storyline felt very circular by the end, it was just a lot of pointless running and chasing. Tighter editing would have made the sense of urgency really pop.
The twist at the end, well it was easily foreseen from about half the book, both the political one and the one about one of the characters' parentage. The convenient ending of the villain felt, well, too convenient, too easy. It fell flat with me.
What did I like about the book? Elizabeth Kostova is definitely a talented writer, her descriptions can be very vivid, even if sometimes her prose is too purple. I loved learning about a dark period in history of a country we don't often read about.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, in the sense that it isn't a bad book by any means, but it is not a must.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.