Brie
Everything came full-circle. All plots were resolved which is refreshing. No one likes loose ends. That being said, the book was weak in the middle. It was formulaic and predictable and everybody knew everybody which really, really got old.
Fantastic! The story is captivating and the writing is beautiful. The ending brought me to tears. My fourth book in the Dublin Murder Squad and favorite, hands down!
I love Neal Stephenson. I love spy novels. I am curious about all things Soviet era. This book should have been a slam dunk ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for me. I excitedly bought the hardcover and chose to start the series before it was completed.
My faith in Neal was not rewarded. This is the shortest Stephenson work I've read and it was the longest slog.
- The setup is a great idea. The backdrop of the World's Fair is promising.
- The execution doesn't work for me. It all fell flat and I'm not going to finish the trilogy.
- The book meandered. I expected it was the beginning of a trilogy but I didn't walk away caring about any of the characters or what would happen next.
The writing made me wonder “Umm, really?” on several occasions. I stuck with it because of the story.
It's dystopian and depressing in a good way. It's similar in tone (but not plot, characters) and environment to ‘Children of Men'.
Very slow beginning, I put it down a couple times. Once it got going, it was pretty solid. Didn't see some of the twists coming. The ending was a little disappointing but I loved this book!
Amazing. Wonderful ending. Don't read anything about it before you read it. (Some parts were a little rough to get through but totally worth it. Beautiful ending!)
Tana doesn't need the Dublin Murder Squad to write a good book! This feels (and was intended to be) like a Western set in Ireland. The cowboy, Cal Hooper, is a former Chicago cop who retires to the countryside for quiet but doesn't find it. You learn bits of what drove Cal out of the force and how he perceives systemic racism in policing but only 1 or 2 pages on the topic.
A small detail to capture what I love about Tana's writing: the rooks on Cal's land are almost elevated to characters, a remix on a Greek chorus. They are standoffish and insult him, they ignore him or make fun when he hurts himself. They aren't a big part of the story but the detail helps to build out the environment, especially when there's only one neighbor near enough to stop by.
This was an absolutely fantastic look at pre-WW2 Italy. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in current events. Undertanding the origins of fascism is really enlightening, especialy at this moment. You may learn a lot about the inner workings of the Vatican, too.
Note: you may wish to review the unification of Italy and general history of Italy from ~1840-1920 as a good foundation before reading this book but that is not at all necessary.
I was really nervous about reading this book because of the whole “prayer log” thing.
I just finished the book and: wow! The ending of the book was wonderful and I was compelled to flip back and read the last scene twice. The book isn't very nice and nothing is made easy for any of the characters but your commitment to making your way to the end of this book will be rewarded.
In my opinion, the worst of the disturbing content is in the first few chapters. Once that's over, it's mostly done and it never gets as bad as it is in the beginning of the book. I almost stopped reading but didn't and it was the right choice.
I remember reading this in about seventh grade. Definitely a good book for that age bracket.
Again, it's been a while. This is one of the books we read in school that I actually remembered just from the title. It's probably worth a read.