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specs's Reviews (135)
This was...fine. Bought it because I took a 2 hour train trip without my phone or another book, and so made an emergency book purchase at the newsstand at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. I do love a book with a map and a glossary, but this one just didn't grab me. It teases a supernatural explanation for something and then, a few chapters before the end, finally says nope, there is a perfectly earthly explanation for this. And at that point I put the book down and almost didn't finish it -- because I cared more about the mechanics of the maybe-supernatural-thing than the characters.
Perfectly serviceable historical fiction with women at its core.
Perfectly serviceable historical fiction with women at its core.
This was...fine. Read it on the recommendation of NPR and it was a perfectly servicable medieval romance.
I wish the whole book was as good as the last 25%. The first 75% lost me with the dryness of men debating their own intelligence and history and blah blah guilt blah Catholicism, technology, some kind of machinery hijinks, TIME IS A CIRCLE MEN ARE BAD, etc. None of that grabbed me the way the personal stories of the last section did. The ending is heavy and will be weighing on me for a while.
I really enjoyed this! It wasn't the non-stop, claustrophobic terror I expected based on some other reviews, but that's not necessarily a bad thing (unless that's what you want, in which case, I dunno, go seal yourself in a cave). This was just a well-written and easy to read survival story with sci-fi and paranormal stuff baked in.
