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phwoarker 's review for:
City of Thieves
by David Benioff
3.5 stars.
I was a tiny bit disappointed with this, especially after seeing all the glowing reviews. While it had all of the elements of a good book - interesting characters, fascinating setting, gripping plot, competently written (I would never say well-written) - it just fell a little flat. Being set during the siege of Stalingrad, the book covers some really harrowing themes but, despite this, I never really felt particularly engaged with the setting or the characters.
I think that this is a general problem with novels written by screenwriters; the dialogue is snappy but the descriptions of the surroundings and the use of language are perfunctory at best, so you never care very deeply about what's going on. On top of this, the ending was incredibly rushed - one minute they're in the middle of the action and within 15 pages the book ends, which was odd.
If this was made into a movie I'm sure it would be great, but as a novel it's just a little 'meh'.
I was a tiny bit disappointed with this, especially after seeing all the glowing reviews. While it had all of the elements of a good book - interesting characters, fascinating setting, gripping plot, competently written (I would never say well-written) - it just fell a little flat. Being set during the siege of Stalingrad, the book covers some really harrowing themes but, despite this, I never really felt particularly engaged with the setting or the characters.
I think that this is a general problem with novels written by screenwriters; the dialogue is snappy but the descriptions of the surroundings and the use of language are perfunctory at best, so you never care very deeply about what's going on. On top of this, the ending was incredibly rushed - one minute they're in the middle of the action and within 15 pages the book ends, which was odd.
If this was made into a movie I'm sure it would be great, but as a novel it's just a little 'meh'.