Well, I finally finished The Historian. And overall, I liked it. Overall.
I will say that I thought it was way too long, and I found the first half extremely confusing. See, the narrator is the 16-year old daughter of a historian (an historian?) And part of her story is retelling the story her father told her. And part of his story is retelling the story a mentor/professor friend told him. So we have three first-person narrators, and I found myself forgetting who was talking more than once. But once we got about halfway through, that cleared up. Then it was this complicated jaunt through European monasteries looking for the final grave of Vlad the Impaler (also known as....well, never mind.) My last complaint is that I found it to be a whole lot of build up to not much climax.
But other than those things.....I liked it. I have to admire the amount of research that went into it, and it was a very unique novel. One of the better points made was questioning the fascination we all have with the evil events in history. Why are we so compelled to study evil people and their evil deeds?
Ultimately, three and a half out of five stars. I wish I could have given it a better read. I'm sure I missed a lot of stuff.
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9 comments:
I have that book. I stole it from a beach house about three years ago.
Nah. Paul STOLE something? I just can't believe that.
I thought The Historian was WAY too much story for WAY too little payoff.
Reminds me a little of my experience reading Vampire Lestat many years ago. It started off great, this vampire telling his story...then flashing back to his old story, in which then somebody else had to tell their story and then somebody else had to tell their story...
"The ending was a little twilight zone. I like a definate happy-ever-after ending in my fantasy reads"....says the Squid.
Don't your boys read Harry Potter? It is in my humble opinion the best series EVER since Little House on the Prarie. Followed closely by Anne of Green Gables. But anyhow, also I recommend for them Eragon and Eldest. Also the Septimus Heap series. I didn't like The Amber Spyglass. But, I have heard good things about Artimus Fowl and Inkheart. Do you read those? ....says the Squid.
P.S. For adults, I recommend the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. It is listed for young adults, but I enjoyed it TREMENDOUSLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.P.S. She wrote recently The Host which is a stand alone book. I read it, flipped it open to the middle of the book, and started reading it all over again!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kyle wants all you readers to know that it is his wife, me...aka..."The Squid" responding to this blog. He doesn't read girlie books. But, I do....lots and lots and lots of books. Girlie and otherwise....says me, The Squid.
I was just thinking the other day "Squid doesn't comment on my blog anymore." Silly me.
We are big Harry Potter fans here - Ben has read them all twice, and Daniel is just getting started. I think they are AMAZING books. Ben has read the Cornelia Funke books and likes them very much. None of us cared for Eragon much - I thought it was a lot of build up and then not much of fight at the end. But I was impressed that a 15-year old wrote it. We will look into your other recommendations....I'm always looking for a good book!
If you didn't like the book, then you would have HATED the movie even more than i did.
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