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raffy23 's review for:
Beneath a Scarlet Sky
by Mark T. Sullivan
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Ahh see, I was enjoying it right until the ending aftermath where I felt like something about a character, General Leyers, wasn't adding up.
When I google it to find an answer, I fall down a rabbit hole of the scandal: this isn't the "90% true story" it was marketed as.
In fact, whole ass events were fabricated by the author and the Lella family are seemingly going along with the fraud and scamming people about Pino being this huge war hero for profits.
This would be okay if the author didn't turn real people in history into villains when it was actually someone else who did those actions & didn't keep pretending Pino met all these famous people (EVEN in the non-fiction aftermath section at the end, majority of which have been debunked). So many lies and for what? Could've just as easily not said it was 90% true or just change names/make an entirely fictional story instead of promoting a lying family who steal someone else's photo and pretend its them. For all we know, since he was caught in so many lies, Pino Lella could've made up that he was a spy to be forgiven/as a cover for joining the wrong side of history and helping Nazis.
It's a shame cause I did enjoy this book until I caught the author in what felt like a lie about Leyers. Especially the twist before the aftermath (That being said, the dialogue was so wooden that I once thought 'who speaks like this to someone they're close with?').
If you want to read this, just know it's all pretty much fake & not true. If you know that & don't believe the marketing and the author's/Lellas' claims, it might not be ruined for you as it was for me.
I wonder...if they were just honest and didn't use real people to make them antagonists/heroes/character pawns for the story, wouldn't I have given this a 4 stars? Possibly near 5? Hmmmm. Instead, I'll leave it unrated (for now. Maybe I'll give it a disappointed 1 star later or 3 stars to balance out the good & bad?).
When I google it to find an answer, I fall down a rabbit hole of the scandal: this isn't the "90% true story" it was marketed as.
In fact, whole ass events were fabricated by the author and the Lella family are seemingly going along with the fraud and scamming people about Pino being this huge war hero for profits.
This would be okay if the author didn't turn real people in history into villains when it was actually someone else who did those actions & didn't keep pretending Pino met all these famous people (EVEN in the non-fiction aftermath section at the end, majority of which have been debunked). So many lies and for what? Could've just as easily not said it was 90% true or just change names/make an entirely fictional story instead of promoting a lying family who steal someone else's photo and pretend its them. For all we know, since he was caught in so many lies, Pino Lella could've made up that he was a spy to be forgiven/as a cover for joining the wrong side of history and helping Nazis.
It's a shame cause I did enjoy this book until I caught the author in what felt like a lie about Leyers. Especially the twist before the aftermath (That being said, the dialogue was so wooden that I once thought 'who speaks like this to someone they're close with?').
If you want to read this, just know it's all pretty much fake & not true. If you know that & don't believe the marketing and the author's/Lellas' claims, it might not be ruined for you as it was for me.
I wonder...if they were just honest and didn't use real people to make them antagonists/heroes/character pawns for the story, wouldn't I have given this a 4 stars? Possibly near 5? Hmmmm. Instead, I'll leave it unrated (for now. Maybe I'll give it a disappointed 1 star later or 3 stars to balance out the good & bad?).