Helpful Score: 13
Another book I chose to not finish. (Can count on one hand how many times that has happened to me in my lifetime.) I thought this was going to be right up my alley, and dove into it with gusto. It started off well enough, though by the time I got about mid-way through I started to find it dragging. I put it down and then just never picked it back up again. Every time I looked at it on my nightstand I decided to go and look at my bookshelf to find something else.
I just posted this book on my account and it was picked up almost immediately. When I saw that, I thought, "I should try to finish this book" so I pulled the bookmark out and started in. Didn't make it a page and found myself flipping forward to the last couple pages to just read the end. Didn't even do that as from what I can tell it "ended" over the last several chapters. In the end (for me) I just decided to give up and send it along to someone who hopefully will enjoy it a whole lot more than I did.
This should have been a book for me - period piece, hints of time travel or time warping, smart female at the center of the book along with a well-known figure from history...but just couldn't hang with it through the middle when I found it getting repetitive and circular and when I felt almost as hallucinogenic reading it as the main character seemed to be "living" it.
Hope you enjoy it, though! Everyone has different tastes, and it's always worth a try to dig into any book!
I just posted this book on my account and it was picked up almost immediately. When I saw that, I thought, "I should try to finish this book" so I pulled the bookmark out and started in. Didn't make it a page and found myself flipping forward to the last couple pages to just read the end. Didn't even do that as from what I can tell it "ended" over the last several chapters. In the end (for me) I just decided to give up and send it along to someone who hopefully will enjoy it a whole lot more than I did.
This should have been a book for me - period piece, hints of time travel or time warping, smart female at the center of the book along with a well-known figure from history...but just couldn't hang with it through the middle when I found it getting repetitive and circular and when I felt almost as hallucinogenic reading it as the main character seemed to be "living" it.
Hope you enjoy it, though! Everyone has different tastes, and it's always worth a try to dig into any book!
Helpful Score: 8
Initially drawn to this book due to its hint of supernatural happenings, I would have enjoyed it even without that aspect. It has a similar feel to The Thirteenth Tale.
Only gripes are the unpleasant subject matter about animal experimentation, a major plot point, and the shift at the end towards the age old plot device of the corporate conspiracy.
Only gripes are the unpleasant subject matter about animal experimentation, a major plot point, and the shift at the end towards the age old plot device of the corporate conspiracy.
Helpful Score: 6
I just couldn't get into this book so I finally gave up and passed it along. The narrator just didn't seem likeable and nothing she talked about seemed to be going anywhere in the plot. Too slow-moving and did not draw me in at all.
Helpful Score: 4
This book is the first novel by an academic author--and unfortunately, it reads like it. The aspects of the book that were based on the author's actual historical research were the most interesting. The fictional plot wrapped around that information, however, was not as well done. Worth reading if you don't let your expectations get too high.
Helpful Score: 3
Very well written, but somewhat disappointing.
Lydia is asked by her on/off-boyfriend Cameron to finish a book his mother was working on all her life: A biography of sorts of Isaac Newton with emphasis on his alchemist endeavors. Lydia moves into the cottage where Cameron's mother, Elizabeth, was living and writing, and soon encounters some strange phenomena. Lights that seem to have no origin and visions of a mysterious figure. By going through Elizabeth's records she soon figures out her theory that either Newton himself or one of his alchemist friends committed murder in order to get him into the coveted Lucasian chair at Oxford. In her present-day life, Lydia also notices a disturbing pattern of deaths that seem to mirror what happened over three hundred years ago, and which seem connected to Cameron's job.
There is some suspense in here, but it all rather fizzles out. I was also expecting a few more historical facts. Instead, the novel places the reader in a dreamlike state, because one enters Lydia's mind. There are some very interesting historical facts about the glass-making industry in the 17th century, and about Newton, but there is no definite theory, because the main documents fingering Newton (or his friends) were acquired by Elizabeth in a rather unusual way, which makes everything written suspect. So in my mind, I was wondering what the purpose of this book is.
Lydia is asked by her on/off-boyfriend Cameron to finish a book his mother was working on all her life: A biography of sorts of Isaac Newton with emphasis on his alchemist endeavors. Lydia moves into the cottage where Cameron's mother, Elizabeth, was living and writing, and soon encounters some strange phenomena. Lights that seem to have no origin and visions of a mysterious figure. By going through Elizabeth's records she soon figures out her theory that either Newton himself or one of his alchemist friends committed murder in order to get him into the coveted Lucasian chair at Oxford. In her present-day life, Lydia also notices a disturbing pattern of deaths that seem to mirror what happened over three hundred years ago, and which seem connected to Cameron's job.
There is some suspense in here, but it all rather fizzles out. I was also expecting a few more historical facts. Instead, the novel places the reader in a dreamlike state, because one enters Lydia's mind. There are some very interesting historical facts about the glass-making industry in the 17th century, and about Newton, but there is no definite theory, because the main documents fingering Newton (or his friends) were acquired by Elizabeth in a rather unusual way, which makes everything written suspect. So in my mind, I was wondering what the purpose of this book is.
