The Absolute Book

DNF. Too many vague conversations, wandering plot lines, and random mythical characters. I made it until a crocodile attacked one of the villains–in northern England.

A huge disappointment. This was an absolute mess of a book. I had been hearing a lot of hype for this one, but this really was not a good read. Borderline incoherent, this story has a plot that jumps all over the place, thinly developed characters and world and a distinct lack of fun. I can kind of respect the ambition presented, but it falls flat on its face quickly and never really gets back up again.

As far as I can tell the main themes seem to be about the power of books and knowledge - a constant theme seems to be the burning of libraries and a search for a scroll containing the language of god. The importance of these things are only loosely alluded too though. Elizabeth Knox appears to have attempted a melding of literary fiction with fantasy, and I can respect that the prose is good. The plot however crawls along at a snail pace. It moves glacially slowly, and I am still not convinced that there is more than a few pages worth of relevant information in this massively long book. This lack of plot is a criticism I have made of literary fiction before as well, and it seems particularly out of place in what is marketed as an epic fantasy (where plot is vitally important!).

Ultimately I was bored and confused by this. Biggest disappointment so far this year.

This book is too schizophrenic for my taste. DNF'ed.

2.5 and I'll be the first to admit that I probably will need to do a reread later on. I just get the feeling I missed something. I was also frustrated by the hard left turn the Epilogue takes. I'm all for a save the earth bit, but (like I said earlier) I either missed it heading in that direction or it was a forced turn. That being said, I loved the mythology and world building. And honestly would have enjoyed more Taryn on the book tour circuit. I want to read her book.

Couldn't get on with this at all. Writing style was clumsy so often got to the end of a paragraph or even a sentence with no real idea of what was going on. Became unbearable during the first ‘action' passage of the book where Taryn is attacked outside the library. Couldn't really picture the layout of the library, the location of the 4 characters or how the fight unfolded. Then the characters find themselves in another world without much surprise, Taryn learns she's been possessed by a demon without any sense of horror (oh, it must be because I sinned!) and the author is clearly setting up the possibility of her affair with the copper, even though there is absolutely no sexual or emotional tension between them at all. Figure if it's just getting worse after 120 pages I should just cut my losses. DNF.

Did not finish book. Stopped at 30%.
I really tried with this one. There's just too much of nothing going on and long-winded, overly descriptive writing.

I stopped at 193. I just can't. This is seriously just all over the place.