A review by goldenfinch
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

2.0

I made it to page 82, and that was a struggle. This book sounded like so much of what I would love. Historical fiction, shady academia, cool old ass documents that, ahem, should NOT be handled with cotton gloves because the cotton can and will snag on the paper fibers (don’t ask me why that minor detail in the book really got to me - it was just the icing on this Boring Book cake). As other reviewers said, it’s absurdly wordy and drawn out. Sometimes I don’t mind that - see Donna Tartt and The Goldfinch - but nothing was happening, I didn’t care about the “mystery” behind the documents, the characters were a snooze fest and the professor is unnecessarily mean/snobbish. Which is, perhaps, on brand for academia in 2000 (and today unfortunately), but as a graduate student myself it irritated me to no end. I hoped that when we FINALLY got to Ester the story would pick up pace, but alas. A reluctant DNF.