Reviews

The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews

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sabsabi's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

scrollingbooks's review

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3.0

[Other reviewers have summarised the plot more succinctly than I could ever do...so I'm going straight to the meat and potatoes - the review.]
The blurb sold me this book. Set in the period of the English Civil War, with witchcraft, and a brother trying to protect his sister: What's not to like?
Well, for me, quite a lot as it happens.
Firstly, this book is well written. The language is beautiful and the characters carefully drawn. However, the setting (time period) left me dissatisfied and the plot inconsistencies plain annoyed me.
The problem with the setting/time period was that there wasn't enough detail to pin it down to the English Civil War. Yes, it was talked about, and yes there was an initial witchcraft thread, but there was no anchor. Pretty much all of the book could be lifted and placed in any other historical time period and it wouldn't have made a jot of difference. I wanted to be immersed, to get a gritty feeling for the time, place, and events of the day, but no such luck.
Then there was the dissatisfying plot which just didn't work for me. It starts out with innocent women being accused of witchcraft....but then the main character's sister becomes possessed by an evil spirit, talking in voices, and convincing people to commit suicide, and no one thinks to accuse her of being a witch. Another thing that grated was the emphasis on a war wound that disabled the protagonist, but then hey ho, it was all healed and tiddly after a bit of rest.
I won't catalogue the issues that irritated me. Perhaps this wasn't a book for me, but a generous 3 stars (would have been 2 stars but the quality of the writing saved it.)