A review by elementarymydear
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Did not finish book.

I was very aware while reading this that this was A Good Piece Of Literature. It was award-winning, about an important period of history, and well-known. But not only was it dull, it was also actually difficult to read. It was very hard to keep track of who was talking, because Mantel seems unable to use Thomas Cromwell's name at all, and speech marks appeared to be randomly missing, to the point that sometimes a sentence would contain two pieces of speech; one with speech marks, one without. And then there's be an internal thought that was impossible to distinguish. It also just feels lazy to start a paragraph with a time of year and then a colon, and it interrupts the narrative.

I gave up (about halfway through) when I realised that a) I dreaded the thought of having to go back and read some more and b) I knew nothing about the main character. I knew the facts, like his name, his family, but nothing about his personality, who he was as a person.

I know that lots of people really like this book, and I can sort of see why, but it just really isn't for me. I couldn't get into it, I found it a struggle, and for that reason I gave up.