The Mists Of Avalon

FINALLY. After like a year of both reading/listening to this book I am finally done. I highly suggest listening to it vs reading, as the narrator Davina Porter (for the one I listened to) was amazing. She annunciated every sentence much better than reading it. Old English is hard at times to breathe life into (especially when just reading it). I have so much and so little to say about this book. First, when I was young reading tales of quests for Camelot I loved the story of Gwenivere and Lancelot. When I got to the second part of this book and the character of Gwenivere was introduced, I got very excited. However, as soon as she started to play a more major part I was sick of her. She was poison to the whole book. Though I think that was the point, for her to be a foil to so many other characters, I still thought she was the worst. I would that the book probably could have been 50 pages shorter just by cutting some of her banter out. I felt as though several situations involving her and a few others were rehashed so many times that it was like the author typed the same paragraph every chapter. The other part that stood out though was how complete this book was. The timeline for the book was very extensive and ranged about 70 + years with many many main characters. The organization and separation of chapters and parts were skillfully done and the writing was woven into a complete and very complex plot that spanned several theologies and large themes. I have so much to say about this (almost) 900 page book, but it's too much for a review. All in all a very solid historical fiction novel that possessed themes about the differing of religion and the faults of people that still ring true to the 21st century. 4⭐️/5