Thursday, June 26, 2014

2014 book 143

Deborah Harkness' The Book of Life
The final book in Harkness' academic-nerd-Twilight series is . . . more of the same. The writing is still really awkward and Harkness explains things way too much. And the story kind of just moves from one crazy crisis to another (literally, as soon as they speak of a possible danger, that danger calls them on the phone). There's also a lot of dumb macho posturing--many of the dude characters are straight up sexist, explained away as their old timey vampireness. And mustache-twirling villains raping ladies as part of a psychotic breeding program is really not something I enjoy reading about. Seriously, is it that hard to write a bad guy without rape being involved? Anyway, the stakes never really feel that high, and the protagonist definitely wouldn't still be a professor after all this (was she on sabbatical for the entirety of this book? This is never explained). I mean, it's entertaining enough, but it's kind of all over the place. B.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in July.

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