gianaf 's review for:

The Engineer's Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood

2.0

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I give it two stars instead of one because it did teach me a lot about the process if building bridges and the story of Emily Warren Roebling. That’s all it did. I found the pacing clunky and the prose of the main character entirely unlikable. A Mary Sue who could do no wrong apparently. Seriously, even when someone didn’t like her, it turned out it was because she reminded them of a dead wife or something. Emily was constantly whiney and naive and something about her just irked me. I also didn’t like the use of PT Barnum as a plot device; the fact that they are two real people and there is no supporting evidence made the whole book read like poor fan fiction (and the way the author tried to justify it by saying “well he was around at the time” irked me). I understand embellishing and changing facts to fit a story, but when dealing with real people, I feel like there is an extent with which you have to remain within the confines of history. Also her making up the whole Elizabeth plotline felt weird. Even when I thought it was true, the way it appeared randomly felt awkward and out of place and honestly the story would not have suffered, or been any different whatsoever if it had been removed. I don’t know why it was there.