Reviews

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

kdund's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

patrick_dale91's review against another edition

3.0

Although written in the classic, wonderful Mantel prose, this book was ultimately too long and quite simply paled in comparison to her Wolf Hall trilogy. It's centred around 3 characters who were huge cogs in the French revolution: Danton, Camille and Robespierre, following them from childhood to revolution. If this book has started nearer to the revolution, it would definitely be getting 4 stars; unfortunately, it took a good 300 pages until it gets going and was a slog until then. When it's st its best, it's fantastic, depicting the horrors of the Terror years so well, where revolutionary factions fought for power; as I said, the last 400 pages show Mantel as the queen of historical fiction. Still, a shame it took a while to get there.

lbjessome's review against another edition

challenging dark informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Excellent, informative yet still confusing and often tedious. Mantel had yet to perfect her approach to complex historical fiction when she wrote this one - she appears to have included nearly every actual historical actor in the text, with very little effort to differentiate them from one another. I am sort of glad I read it but cannot recommend it to anyone.

nrichtsmeier's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

patmcmanamon's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

ekhg06's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

yourfavavery's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

okapipo's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.75

This could've been edited way down.
It had interesting and funny bits but it took more supplementary reading than I cared for at times. 

The narrator did his best but they really could've helped him more on some of those pronunciations.

mafm22's review against another edition

5.0

First audiobook ever.

I read eight months on ghazza st twenty something years ago and didn’t love it, so had avoided reading Hilary Mantel since then.

Looking at my list of read books I apparently like historical fiction.

This is really good historical fiction.

After finishing, I am tempted to either actually read or re-listen.

Will have to give the wolf hall trilogy a shot now.

charllllotte's review against another edition

3.0

I agree with other reviewers, that this book needs lots of background info on the readers' side, and no less concentration.
The pace was slow (at least until half of the book), and the plotline tends to drown among tons of details.