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balletbookworm 's review for:
The Book of Air and Shadows
by Michael Gruber
DID NOT FINISH
This is technically a DNF (did not finish).
I've been sitting on the hard cover for a while (since May 2007, actually) and the story seemed interesting. A lost Shakespeare manuscript ('tis the vogue for mysteries these days it seems), mobsters, creepy lawyers, paleography...seemed interesting.
Well, I forced myself to read the first 100 pages (through chapter 5) then did something I never do - I read the very last chapter. It was really more like an epilogue and I was completely unimpressed. There are two narrators (Jake-the-IP-lawyer narrates in the first person and there's a third-person narration for every scene not involving Jake) as well as the Bracegirdle "letters" which supposedly point toward the existence of a missing Shakespeare MS about Mary Queen of Scots. The story ping-pongs around and doesn't really go anywhere in those first 5 chapters to make me want to read more.
Also, those Bracegirdle letters don't seem very real to me. I've had to read letters from the English Civil War/Restoration period - those of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, John Dryen - as well as the work of Robert Boyle and John Milton and when I compare the letters to what I've read the "made-up" ones strike a false note.
I've been sitting on the hard cover for a while (since May 2007, actually) and the story seemed interesting. A lost Shakespeare manuscript ('tis the vogue for mysteries these days it seems), mobsters, creepy lawyers, paleography...seemed interesting.
Well, I forced myself to read the first 100 pages (through chapter 5) then did something I never do - I read the very last chapter. It was really more like an epilogue and I was completely unimpressed. There are two narrators (Jake-the-IP-lawyer narrates in the first person and there's a third-person narration for every scene not involving Jake) as well as the Bracegirdle "letters" which supposedly point toward the existence of a missing Shakespeare MS about Mary Queen of Scots. The story ping-pongs around and doesn't really go anywhere in those first 5 chapters to make me want to read more.
Also, those Bracegirdle letters don't seem very real to me. I've had to read letters from the English Civil War/Restoration period - those of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, John Dryen - as well as the work of Robert Boyle and John Milton and when I compare the letters to what I've read the "made-up" ones strike a false note.