reading update
24. 
A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I think I was expecting far more going into this book. The writing was a mix of both decent and overly explanatory and disjointed - the latter traits which interrupted the flow of the prose.
The plot was...nothing all that great. It would have been better had it stuck with the premise that it originally opened with - that there was alchemical text that held the secrets of all four species of humanity, and she was the one with the power to open it for the first time in hundreds of years.
Instead, the plot meanders off into a very bad attempt at a romance. I won't go as far to say its inconceivable if you want to believe in a storyline that lays out a fate thousands of years in advance - there is something sort of creepy about that anyway - but the dialogue and the attempts at working the romantic angle in is just not well done; and reads like a 4.99 seasonal romance special.
This is a book that can't decide what it wants to be - a mystery with a romantic subplot; or a supernatural romance with a mystery subplot. It ends up not managing at either well.
25. Grimrose Path: book 2 of the trickster series by Rob Thurman. (3 stars)
26. After Hours: Tales of the Ur-Bar. (4 stars). Edited by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier.
A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I think I was expecting far more going into this book. The writing was a mix of both decent and overly explanatory and disjointed - the latter traits which interrupted the flow of the prose.
The plot was...nothing all that great. It would have been better had it stuck with the premise that it originally opened with - that there was alchemical text that held the secrets of all four species of humanity, and she was the one with the power to open it for the first time in hundreds of years.
Instead, the plot meanders off into a very bad attempt at a romance. I won't go as far to say its inconceivable if you want to believe in a storyline that lays out a fate thousands of years in advance - there is something sort of creepy about that anyway - but the dialogue and the attempts at working the romantic angle in is just not well done; and reads like a 4.99 seasonal romance special.
This is a book that can't decide what it wants to be - a mystery with a romantic subplot; or a supernatural romance with a mystery subplot. It ends up not managing at either well.
25. Grimrose Path: book 2 of the trickster series by Rob Thurman. (3 stars)
26. After Hours: Tales of the Ur-Bar. (4 stars). Edited by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier.