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maddyh4566 's review for:
The Magnolia Palace
by Fiona Davis
I thought this book was ok. It took me admittedly a long time to get through. I was obsessed with the art history, meets mystery, meets love story that was presented to me on the cover flap. But my only thought when I finished the book was, well guess that’s done.
I feel like I loved every idea the book was approaching, the non linear timeline, jumping back and forth between Lillian’s story and Veronica’s, the unsolved mystery plaguing all of them, the complex character relationships, and the slow burn love stories. But I felt like the execution was lacking, the ending felt like a desperate attempt to surprise the reader, but it just felt like it came out of left field - like it just got thrown in just so no one could say they saw it coming. I feel like the first two-thirds of the book were just character build up and then everything came rushing to a close but not in a page turner way. More in a whip-lash, I understood what happened but don’t remember how it happened way.
I can respect and fully admire the amount of research that went into the book, I love the Frick Collection, I love anything art related and very much enjoyed the art discussions, but honestly not much else.
I feel like I loved every idea the book was approaching, the non linear timeline, jumping back and forth between Lillian’s story and Veronica’s, the unsolved mystery plaguing all of them, the complex character relationships, and the slow burn love stories. But I felt like the execution was lacking, the ending felt like a desperate attempt to surprise the reader, but it just felt like it came out of left field - like it just got thrown in just so no one could say they saw it coming. I feel like the first two-thirds of the book were just character build up and then everything came rushing to a close but not in a page turner way. More in a whip-lash, I understood what happened but don’t remember how it happened way.
I can respect and fully admire the amount of research that went into the book, I love the Frick Collection, I love anything art related and very much enjoyed the art discussions, but honestly not much else.