Comment

Jul 14, 2018indigo_nightingale_63 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
this book was so good that i read it as slowly as i possibly could because the prospect of not having this book to read was so terrible. when i got to the last hundred pages, i abandoned it for a month. my copy was so horrifically overdue that i just returned it and waited until i could get to the bookstore. then i finished the book. when it was over, i sat and stared into space for about half an hour. i asked myself what there was, without this book. i asked myself what i would do, now that this had ended. i signed up for bookmatch. i trawled the internet for recs. nothing is good like this book is good. there are lots of good books in the world. shakespeare, many people agree, was a good writer. i've always loved jane austen. there are hundreds of wonderful classics, and hundreds of new gems coming out each year. there are books that read like poetry and books that can make you laugh out loud in public like an idiot. nothing is good like this book is good. not to say that it's the best book ever written, which i don't have an opinion on really because i haven't read every book ever written. but i do know that this book is special. it's different from other books. i don't think it has to be, necessarily. i think lots of other people COULD write like this (maybe not quite as well, or as seemingly effortlessly, but maybe) but they refuse to. it's like susanna clarke comes from a totally different place. she is a master. i know this book took a lot of hard work to create, but there's also something innate to the author that comes out; talent, of course, loads, but also a total uniqueness. of course i've read other stuff like that, which shocked me with uniqueness of purpose. but she combines that with the work and research, the talent, the honed technique, the wide background of references, the sophistication, the confidence, the ambition. also she's true to the time while also having a diverse cast of characters and it's so natural and well-written. it's like she tapped into the vat of pure human emotion and wrote this whole book on some sort of supernatural high. and then edited it very, very well? reading this book made me feel like no other book had before. it was sort of a harry potter feeling. you know when you were a kid and you read harry potter? it's a little like that. but it's more, because you're older now, and because this book is older. this book is at least a thousand years old. because of all the research that went into this book, how deep it cuts, the depth of emotion it displays, the sheer realness of it all. you feel like it's real, and yet it's perfectly magical. this book makes you feel like magic is real. susanna clarke, if you're out there, please write another book. susanna, i will read your grocery lists. i will read your motivational post-it notes. if you wrote a book that was just reviews of different vacuum cleaners, i would read that. in conclusion, five stars. please read this book, so that i feel less alone in the world, and also for you, because you'll love it, or maybe you'll think its boring. some people think this book is boring, apparently. it did win a lot of prizes, though, so most people are on my side about this one.