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Tonina

Tonina Talks Tales

Lifelong reader with the food-smudged and bath-drowned books to prove it. I read YA and SF/F with forays into history, politics, classic lit, and *good* historical fiction. My e-reader is my constant companion.

Currently reading

The Bone Season
Samantha Shannon
This is W.A.R.
'Lisa Roecker', 'Laura Roecker'

The Book of Blood and Shadow

The Book of Blood and Shadow - Robin Wasserman My first impression of this book was that the author read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and thought to herself, "Gosh, I can write something like this! Only I'll water it down, dump the vampire angle, and insert some kind of vaguely described device that someone could maybe use to communicate with God! Or maybe it will just burn them to death like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark!"For a book loaded with murder, intrigue, treachery, fantastical elements, and secret societies, Ms. Wasserman's story really dragged for me. I invariably figured out the next major plot twist well before the beleaguered main character, Nora Kane, which left me frustrated with her and annoyed with the author for making the story so predictable. Moreover, I didn't particularly like Nora as a character (too wimpy and pushover-ish) and I actively disliked her "friend" Adriane, so that didn't exactly leave me invested in the story. I'm giving this two stars because it takes a lot to get me to give a book a one star review, and because I enjoyed some of the details about Prague and the bits of Czech language interlarded throughout the latter half of the book. However, I don't recommend it unless you're truly desperate for something to read and you have a high tolerance for predictability in your "thrillers".