A review by sandraandthecity
Pandora by Anne Rice

3.0

This book is really 2.5 stars. I wish there was a 1/2 star system because it’s not horrible but it certainly isn’t a good book. I thought I would enjoy it more but it’s really such a rambling mess with bad history mixed in, that I couldn’t really get into it. It’s not as bad as Memnoch or Queen of the Damned, but it’s certainly not one of Rice’s better books in the Vampire Chronicles series. She needs an editor - period. I don’t get why that bothers her so much, given that every good writer has one. It’s not a show of weakness, nor should it be equated with being a bad writer, it actually means that your writing improves because another pair of eyes had a go of it. You have to have an exceptionally fragile ego if you can’t bear to submit your book to editing. She will keep getting reviews like this and worse until she gets an editor who can clean up her writing. This book could’ve been SO good if it had been tightened up. Instead, you have an interesting back story set in Roman times that is a hot mess. It’s a bad version of stream-of-consciousness religious rambling, history with glaring mistakes, and an abrupt ending that sweeps over a thousand years in 30 pages. It disjointed, poorly fact checked, and poorly written - which is such a shame because the meat of Pandora’s story is there and there were parts of it that were very interesting that could have been better developed if she had someone else guide her through it. I’m going to continue on reading the series because I want to finish it but I’m finding it a struggle because so many of the books now are mediocre to just plain bad. I can’t recommend this book, it’s ok in parts but ruined by the verbose writing. There are better books written by her and better fiction books set in this period that at least do the work of getting it historically accurate. 2.5/5 - and that is being kind because I love Interview, Lestat and Tale of the Body Thief.