I honestly HATED this book, which really surprised me given all of the hullabaloo surrounding it! And then I looked at the reviews on Amazon, and I realized that I was not alone. I thought this book was absolutely terrible, and so did a LOT of people. Ken Follet is normally a great writer, but I really thought that he dropped the ball on this one. First of all, he committed the cardinal sin of historical fiction writing- he let his research show. Rather than blending his (obviously extensive) research on cathedrals and cathedral building seamlessly into the story (like a lot of authors before him have managed to do), he just word vomits it all over the pages where descriptions are needed. It feels as though he copied and pasted whole sections from dry text books and how-to manuals.
And then there are the characters. Oh, the characters. The husband and father who randomly has sex with some stranger in the mist ON THE DAY his wife is killed (!!!) and then marries her...kind of. The fact that all the "good" characters are purely good and all the "bad" characters are purely bad...the fact that someone BEING raped or ALMOST being raped on almost EVERY. SINGLE. PAGE. In vivid detail and with full descriptions...ugh. We GET IT. Medieval England was a brutal place. Fine.
And Follet commits the sin of Stephanie Meyers and well in that he finds certain adjectives that he really, really likes and decides that they're the ONLY ones that will do and uses them throughout the rest of the book ad nauseum.
I truly did not get the fervor and fanaticism that this book has inspired. There are other books about similar subject matter that handles it SO MUCH BETTER! Maybe it's because of the shock that Follet caused when he veered so completely off of the expected course for him? Who knows.
I absolutely hated it, which is rare for me.
This was seriously the worst. Over wrought and SO BORING. It was like reading terrible fan fiction, which I guess is what it really was. I'm sorry I wasted my time on this.
I really didn't think that I would enjoy this as much as I did! It definitely filled a void left by the end of the amazing Monk series on USA. I went back to the library and checked out two more in e series right after finishing this!
Ugh. Trite, shallow dreck. The stories in this novel were half-begun and never fully explored, the conflicts were too easily resolved in a completely unrealistic way, and the men in the book are pretty much interchangeable because apparently Maccomber doesn't know how to really write a believable male character. This was genuinely awful and I will my be reading any more of this or any other series by this author. This is why I generally don't read romance novels! They're usually just this shallow and a waste of my time.
My reasons for not really enjoying this book aren't really the fault of the book. I was disappointed by the amount of times the author strayed from what I thought the book was about (his hike with a friend along the Appalachian Trail) to what the book was actually about (the history of the Trail and a treatise on conservationism). I was hoping for more of a narrative about their adventures, their impressions, hi jinks along the way, etc. that's not what this book is at all except for a handful of chapters. I'm glad I read it, I s'pose, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it and I definitely won't be rereading it. I was extremely relieved to finish this one.
Incredible. Absolutely wonderful. I had had the ending spoiled for me by the author of an article about classic whodunnits, but even so it was fantastic. Highly recommend. It starts a little slow, but stay with it to the end and you'll be glad you did.
Meh. I'm a Lisa See fan but this book draaaaaaaaaaaagged for me. I couldn't think of any reason why these three girls were friends, the narrators weren't honest in the telling of their individual parts of the story, and the way that things wrapped up it seems highly unlikely that the three girls would stay friends but...ugh. I have loved her other books SO much more. This was not her best rendering. Interesting subject matter and definitely one of the more honest depictions of male/female and race relationships in 1940s America that I've read.
I adore Agatha Christie and was revisiting this one for some fun summer reading. His is definitely not one of my favorites, though, especially since Miss Marple is barely in it at all. There is a LOT of just walking around chit chatting, which grew pretty tedious. Still, it's Christie so of course the solution to the whodunnit conundrum is amazing.
This is the best effort I've seen Ms. Lewis make in a long time. It was genuinely interesting and, while it didn't end the way that I was hoping it would, it was still a satisfying read. This is by far the best of her Home to Hickory Hollow series, which heretofore hasn't been saying much. I think that this book would have made an interesting series of its own as I would have enjoyed following the journeys of the characters that were introduced as they explored their new futures. The idea of following a "seeker" through the Proving time of conversion was very interesting and it was fun getting to see where Katie Fisher (of "The Shunning") ended up.
This one starts slowly, but definitely stick with it! It's my second time through it and the ending still made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Plus, I just adore the sweet, funny relationship that the Beresfords have, so the Tommy & Tuppence series are always fun.