Take a photo of a barcode or cover
angus_murchie 's review for:
The Stardust Thief
by Chelsea Abdullah
By the time I finally finished this ridiculously over long book I had grown to hate it with every fibre of my being. The beginning was very slow, it perked up a little after the Sultan gave the Midnight Merchant her assignment and then got steadily worse. Halfway through I thought it might get two stars but it just went on and on and on and was so bloody boring. It was impossible to care about any of the protagonists, and the endless internal monologues and repetition of things we’d already been told about became increasingly tedious. The action sequences were badly written, too confusing to follow and included ridiculous interludes where people in the middle of fights had time to consider the character and motivations of other people they were fighting with. The repeated possessions by jinn relics became a tedious trope and the needlessly over detailed descriptions of the food, clothing and locations added nothing to the story, merely slowing the plot’s progress. Without them the book could have been half as long and would have been much better for it.
Usually, as the end of a book approaches it becomes more and more impossible to put it down. In this case it felt like more like one of the descriptions of infinity, where to get to the end you first have to go halfway, then halfway again, etc etc. The closer I got to the final page the longer and longer it seemed to take to get through each subsequent page. The writing standard also seemed to drop badly towards the end and even became somewhat juvenile at times.
If this hadn’t been a Book Club choice I’d have given up by the 75% point at the latest. I have no idea what other people see in this book to give it 4 and 5 star reviews.
Usually, as the end of a book approaches it becomes more and more impossible to put it down. In this case it felt like more like one of the descriptions of infinity, where to get to the end you first have to go halfway, then halfway again, etc etc. The closer I got to the final page the longer and longer it seemed to take to get through each subsequent page. The writing standard also seemed to drop badly towards the end and even became somewhat juvenile at times.
If this hadn’t been a Book Club choice I’d have given up by the 75% point at the latest. I have no idea what other people see in this book to give it 4 and 5 star reviews.