You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by mdabernig
The Conjuror's Bird by Martin Davies
1.0
This book is actually one big meh. I've been looking forward to reading it for months but always put it off, and maybe it was the anticipation or the blurb, or my own shortcomings as a reader but it was just an epic disappointment.
The concept of the book is decent but the execution was poor. I never felt invested enough in the relationships to care about the present story (which is a shame as I felt the Fitz/Gabby backstory was fascinating and heartbreaking and I wanted to read more about it) and the back story was okay, but not enough to really make you give a damn about the quest to find this extinct stuffed bird and a load of paintings.
I think the book could have benefited from another 100 pages to flesh out the characters. I mean when we didn't even get to see the goodbye between Gabby and Fitz despite the history between them (in their 20 pages of interaction in the book we learn they were lovers, were married, lost a child, he left her and she continued to write to him for the 15 years they were apart but never divorced and the ending just felt so anti-climatic. Fitz and his student, Katya (who I think we were supposed to be rooting for?? I don't know - random insertion of someone to move the story along I guess but she made no indent into the story beyond solving all the clues and being the romantic foil to contrast Fitz past relationship and his new one, I think.
Maybe I missed something epic that made it standout as something memorable, or maybe my love of past/futures colliding just wasn't enough to overlook a book that fundamentally is about taxidermy and is 100 pages of characterisation short of being worthwhile as a character driven book. It definitely improved in terms of readability as it progressed, but to be honest - I was expecting so much more from it when I picked it up. It's definitely not one that will be getting picked up again anytime soon.
The concept of the book is decent but the execution was poor. I never felt invested enough in the relationships to care about the present story (which is a shame as I felt the Fitz/Gabby backstory was fascinating and heartbreaking and I wanted to read more about it) and the back story was okay, but not enough to really make you give a damn about the quest to find this extinct stuffed bird and a load of paintings.
I think the book could have benefited from another 100 pages to flesh out the characters. I mean when we didn't even get to see the goodbye between Gabby and Fitz despite the history between them (in their 20 pages of interaction in the book we learn they were lovers, were married, lost a child, he left her and she continued to write to him for the 15 years they were apart but never divorced and the ending just felt so anti-climatic. Fitz and his student, Katya (who I think we were supposed to be rooting for?? I don't know - random insertion of someone to move the story along I guess but she made no indent into the story beyond solving all the clues and being the romantic foil to contrast Fitz past relationship and his new one, I think.
Maybe I missed something epic that made it standout as something memorable, or maybe my love of past/futures colliding just wasn't enough to overlook a book that fundamentally is about taxidermy and is 100 pages of characterisation short of being worthwhile as a character driven book. It definitely improved in terms of readability as it progressed, but to be honest - I was expecting so much more from it when I picked it up. It's definitely not one that will be getting picked up again anytime soon.