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nickyxxx 's review for:
The Celtic Myths: A Guide to the Ancient Gods and Legends
by Miranda Aldhouse-Green
I've never read anything so chaotic, what a hot mess #sorrynotsorry
I'm not sure what would be worse: the author not hiring an editor (for reasons we'll never know), or the editor apparently thinking that this is the best version of the book ever possible.
As someone who has never read anything about Celtic mythology and has absolutely no clue about what it entails, I hoped to at least learn a lot about the god(esse)s, what the afterlife looked like, how the Celts gave life meaning and how the gods helped with this, and the Celtic customs in worshipping them.
Instead, I got dull and uninteresting descriptions of archaeological findings that didn't always support the story the author was trying to tell. Of course, I understand that it can be exciting for someone working as an archaeologist, but not everyone is fascinated by sand, rocks and bog bodies. Do me a favour and do the title justice, next time. I feel like the author only scratched the surface of the myths, decided halfway through that she cared more about the science behind it, and dropped all intentions of teaching the reader about the actual Celtic folklore.
And it got worse, because the longer it went on, the less coherent the story was. Titles made no sense at all, tales were cut off and only summarised in 0.5-page paragraphs, and irrelevant photos disturbed the narrative more and more.
I never rate books half stars, but I'm giving this 1.5 stars anyway. The only thing this book did, is give me a starting point and some names that I can look up on Wikipedia. That's literally all it did.
If I'd known this beforehand, I would've asked some random Youtuber to hand me some names on a list and saved me 3 hours of my life.
I'm not sure what would be worse: the author not hiring an editor (for reasons we'll never know), or the editor apparently thinking that this is the best version of the book ever possible.
As someone who has never read anything about Celtic mythology and has absolutely no clue about what it entails, I hoped to at least learn a lot about the god(esse)s, what the afterlife looked like, how the Celts gave life meaning and how the gods helped with this, and the Celtic customs in worshipping them.
Instead, I got dull and uninteresting descriptions of archaeological findings that didn't always support the story the author was trying to tell. Of course, I understand that it can be exciting for someone working as an archaeologist, but not everyone is fascinated by sand, rocks and bog bodies. Do me a favour and do the title justice, next time. I feel like the author only scratched the surface of the myths, decided halfway through that she cared more about the science behind it, and dropped all intentions of teaching the reader about the actual Celtic folklore.
And it got worse, because the longer it went on, the less coherent the story was. Titles made no sense at all, tales were cut off and only summarised in 0.5-page paragraphs, and irrelevant photos disturbed the narrative more and more.
I never rate books half stars, but I'm giving this 1.5 stars anyway. The only thing this book did, is give me a starting point and some names that I can look up on Wikipedia. That's literally all it did.
If I'd known this beforehand, I would've asked some random Youtuber to hand me some names on a list and saved me 3 hours of my life.