Leslie Parry
Author of Church of Marvels
About the Author
Image credit: Uncredited image found at author's website
Works by Leslie Parry
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Parry, Leslie
- Birthdate
- 1979
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Education
- Iowa Writers' Workshop
Members
Reviews
I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.
Actual rating: 2.5/5
I am definitely in the minority on this, but I really did not enjoy reading this book. And I wanted to like it so much!! *sobs* But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't bring myself to be taken from this book. There were just too many things that didn't work for me. For starters, I felt like there were too many POVs. I don't normally mind multiple narrators too much, but here it just felt like the narration was too fragmented and disconnected. The POV alternated too much, too rapidly, and I struggled to keep up. A few times, I actually found myself having to go back and re-read a few parts, simply because I had become too confused by what was happening to actually understand what was going on. I also had real problems with the writing. While it wasn't by any means bad, it just didn't draw me in, and I had difficulty following where it was leading me. And it didn't help that I had to keep looking words up, because there were just SO MANY that I had never heard before, and I had absolutely no clue as to what they meant.
The story was definitely very original, even though I found it hard to follow the various characters. However, I felt that there was an awful lot of telling rather than showing, which really slowed the whole thing down terribly. We actually get to see very little happening in front of us, and most events are shared by the characters after they have happened, as they reflect upon them in the present. And speaking of the characters, I had a very hard time connecting with them, and found them fairly lacking in development. Now, this may just be me, but I felt like they didn't really change that much throughout the book, and then a couple of them just turned their lives around completely at the end of the book... And I just couldn't buy it, because to me it seemed too sudden and radical to be real.
But don't despair just yet! Because there were some positives, too. I LOVED how diverse the characters were! The author managed to include a wide range of diversity in this book, and I think she did a pretty good job of showing the difficulties "different" people would face living in the 1800s, even in a big, modern city like New York. And the historical representation of the city was also very good. Now, I'm no expert, so I actually have no idea if it was accurate at all, but it felt real and that's good enough for me.
I'm very disappointed that I didn't like this book more, because I really thought I would. But I have seen so many other reviewers absolutely adoring it, so don't let me put you off from reading this if you're even mildly interested in it, since it's probably just me. Unfortunately, we just didn't click: I couldn't get into it and I struggled to connect with the characters. I might give it another try in the future to see if my thoughts change at all, but for now it just wasn't a good match.… (more)
Actual rating: 2.5/5
I am definitely in the minority on this, but I really did not enjoy reading this book. And I wanted to like it so much!! *sobs* But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't bring myself to be taken from this book. There were just too many things that didn't work for me. For starters, I felt like there were too many POVs. I don't normally mind multiple narrators too much, but here it just felt like the narration was too fragmented and disconnected. The POV alternated too much, too rapidly, and I struggled to keep up. A few times, I actually found myself having to go back and re-read a few parts, simply because I had become too confused by what was happening to actually understand what was going on. I also had real problems with the writing. While it wasn't by any means bad, it just didn't draw me in, and I had difficulty following where it was leading me. And it didn't help that I had to keep looking words up, because there were just SO MANY that I had never heard before, and I had absolutely no clue as to what they meant.
The story was definitely very original, even though I found it hard to follow the various characters. However, I felt that there was an awful lot of telling rather than showing, which really slowed the whole thing down terribly. We actually get to see very little happening in front of us, and most events are shared by the characters after they have happened, as they reflect upon them in the present. And speaking of the characters, I had a very hard time connecting with them, and found them fairly lacking in development. Now, this may just be me, but I felt like they didn't really change that much throughout the book, and then a couple of them just turned their lives around completely at the end of the book... And I just couldn't buy it, because to me it seemed too sudden and radical to be real.
But don't despair just yet! Because there were some positives, too. I LOVED how diverse the characters were! The author managed to include a wide range of diversity in this book, and I think she did a pretty good job of showing the difficulties "different" people would face living in the 1800s, even in a big, modern city like New York. And the historical representation of the city was also very good. Now, I'm no expert, so I actually have no idea if it was accurate at all, but it felt real and that's good enough for me.
I'm very disappointed that I didn't like this book more, because I really thought I would. But I have seen so many other reviewers absolutely adoring it, so don't let me put you off from reading this if you're even mildly interested in it, since it's probably just me. Unfortunately, we just didn't click: I couldn't get into it and I struggled to connect with the characters. I might give it another try in the future to see if my thoughts change at all, but for now it just wasn't a good match.… (more)
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- Works
- 2
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 591
- Popularity
- #42,466
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 44
- ISBNs
- 20
- Languages
- 2
Set in the New York at the turn of the century this stroy is cleverly written and such an engaging novel full of twists and turns with complex characters and a plot that is dark and gritty. ( Just my kind of story )
My favourite thing about this novel was the wonderful sense of time and place, New York City at the turn of the century was not for the faint hearted by all accounts and Parry's portrayal of the gruesome realites of Carnival life on Coney Island and life in the slums in New York really was excellent. My Great -Grandmother aged 16 arrived in Manhattan from a small farm in Rural Ireland at the turn of the century and I just couldnt help thinking of her in New York as a young emigrant alone and so navive while reading this book.
The author really has a talent for bringing characters to life and I enjoyed each and every one of the diverse characters in this novel. The writing is complex and detailed and I did at times find myself rereading passages expecially as the characters kept slipping into their past in the middle of paragraphs and I would find myself still caught up in their present stroy. Having said that I still found her writing unique and refreshing.
There is great suspense in this stroy and I looked forward to picking this book up every evening.
This Novel was a great read for me and had me gripped from page one. This one will certainly be on my favourites list and I look forward to future novels by this author.… (more)