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fiona_leonard's review
3.0
The Oracle Glass and I got off to a bad start. The book opens with five pages (ok maybe three) of characters and for me, that is never a good thing. The sad fact is that I just do not have the patience to hold the names of fifty different characters in my head, especially when those names change during the course of the novel, and when those fifty different names are also French. Keeping track of those names on a kindle is also problematic. With a physical book it would be easy to go back and forwards between the list of characters but in an e-book it's a more convoluted process.
By the time I had half-heartedly skimmed diligently read through the list I was already feeling tired and I confess that I approached chapter one with a sense of foreboding. This may have contributed to my first impression of the dialogue being stilted and over written. Having just reread it, I'm not entirely sure why I felt that way, but whatever it was, I moved into chapter two with reluctance. Fortunately, from there things picked up and while sometimes I lost track of the characters, this tale of seventeenth century France proved to be an enjoyable one.
The story is told from the perspective of Genevieve Pasquiers, a young woman who escapes a desperate home life and is swept into a fantastic world of witches and fortune tellers. Her ability to accurately see the future in her oracle glass, and some excellent marketing, soon make her the darling of Paris' scheming and power hungry aristocracy. It is a world where fortunes are rapidly made and lost, patronage conferred and withdrawn and love is given and taken for all the wrong reasons. The story is rendered all the more interesting by the fact that it is largely based on historical figures. Their lives and (mis)deeds were documented during a series of high profile witch trials.
Genevieve, and her alter ego, the Marquise de Morville, are incredibly well drawn. She is consistent and well developed over the course of the story. She is believable and feels authentic. The world of her powerful patron, La Voisin is also well drawn. The novel provides a fascinating insight into a secret society of women who serviced the aristocracy whilst at the same time helping their own. These were women who had powers that they both exploited and satirised. In doing so they both acknowledged society's doubts about the services that they provided and shielded themselves from prosecution.
The one element that sits awkwardly are the interspersed chapters from the perspective of La Reynie and Desgrez of the Paris police. While their attempts to bring down the society of witches provides necessary tension, stylistically the chapters sit oddly in the book and jar the reader from the natural flow of the story.
The ending is also extremely unsatisfying. Whilst you clearly understand all that has unfolded and how things are going to turn out it feels like the story stops mid sentence: just an extra page or two would have made all the difference.
On the whole it's a good read - that is if you like 17th century historical novels about witches, populated by a cast of thousands...
By the time I had half-heartedly skimmed diligently read through the list I was already feeling tired and I confess that I approached chapter one with a sense of foreboding. This may have contributed to my first impression of the dialogue being stilted and over written. Having just reread it, I'm not entirely sure why I felt that way, but whatever it was, I moved into chapter two with reluctance. Fortunately, from there things picked up and while sometimes I lost track of the characters, this tale of seventeenth century France proved to be an enjoyable one.
The story is told from the perspective of Genevieve Pasquiers, a young woman who escapes a desperate home life and is swept into a fantastic world of witches and fortune tellers. Her ability to accurately see the future in her oracle glass, and some excellent marketing, soon make her the darling of Paris' scheming and power hungry aristocracy. It is a world where fortunes are rapidly made and lost, patronage conferred and withdrawn and love is given and taken for all the wrong reasons. The story is rendered all the more interesting by the fact that it is largely based on historical figures. Their lives and (mis)deeds were documented during a series of high profile witch trials.
Genevieve, and her alter ego, the Marquise de Morville, are incredibly well drawn. She is consistent and well developed over the course of the story. She is believable and feels authentic. The world of her powerful patron, La Voisin is also well drawn. The novel provides a fascinating insight into a secret society of women who serviced the aristocracy whilst at the same time helping their own. These were women who had powers that they both exploited and satirised. In doing so they both acknowledged society's doubts about the services that they provided and shielded themselves from prosecution.
The one element that sits awkwardly are the interspersed chapters from the perspective of La Reynie and Desgrez of the Paris police. While their attempts to bring down the society of witches provides necessary tension, stylistically the chapters sit oddly in the book and jar the reader from the natural flow of the story.
The ending is also extremely unsatisfying. Whilst you clearly understand all that has unfolded and how things are going to turn out it feels like the story stops mid sentence: just an extra page or two would have made all the difference.
On the whole it's a good read - that is if you like 17th century historical novels about witches, populated by a cast of thousands...
krisrid's review
2.0
This would have been a very good 300-page book. Unfortunately, the author wrote 500 pages which made it into an only fair story.
There are lots of promising aspects to the book: plenty of strong, independant and intelligent female characters, the fascinating world of the Sun King's court, the unique aspects of the Occult world, politics, family intrigues, love - both unrequited and true, and the city of Paris which is always fun as a book setting.
The story itself was very engaging - a young French girl Genevieve Pasquier, not beautiful and with a deformed foot, is the disappointment of her social-climbing mother but becomes the darling of her educated father who educates her with politics, religion and philosophy. Her future turns bad when the father dies and the rest of the selfish grasping family believes Genevieve to be the only one who knows where he hid the fortune they believe he spirited out of Paris. She doesn't, and since they refuse to believe her, and after being violated by her own uncle, Genevieve runs away thinking to commit suicide.
Instead, she is saved by one of the infamous "Witches of Paris" a group of female fortune-tellers and witches who run the occult underground activities of the city. Because Genevieve can see visions in water, La Voisin sees promise and trains her, creates an alter ego - The Marquies de la Morville - and helps her become the most famous and successful fortune-teller in Paris.
The success is good and bad, as it gives Genevieve the independance that virtually no women in Paris at the time enjoyed. But it also thrusts her into the merciless intigues and jockeying for position and prominence that characterized the court of Louis the fourteenth, making her position continously precarious.
As I said this would have been a really good story if it had been shorter. I felt the author included vast amounts of unnecessary details about everything that detracted from my overall enjoyment of the book. I didn't need to have a minute description of every gown, every carriage, every room, and even the weather in every scene of the story to have followed and enjoyed it. The detail became tedious very quickly, and I really feel this could have, and should have, been 300 pages rather than 500.
If the detail had been left out I would have given this three stars. It's an enjoyable story, but you have to skim over all the masses of irrelevant details to just read the actual plot and keep the book from dragging unbearably. This story would definitely have benefitted from a good editor to remove a lot of the extraneous detail.
There are lots of promising aspects to the book: plenty of strong, independant and intelligent female characters, the fascinating world of the Sun King's court, the unique aspects of the Occult world, politics, family intrigues, love - both unrequited and true, and the city of Paris which is always fun as a book setting.
The story itself was very engaging - a young French girl Genevieve Pasquier, not beautiful and with a deformed foot, is the disappointment of her social-climbing mother but becomes the darling of her educated father who educates her with politics, religion and philosophy. Her future turns bad when the father dies and the rest of the selfish grasping family believes Genevieve to be the only one who knows where he hid the fortune they believe he spirited out of Paris. She doesn't, and since they refuse to believe her, and after being violated by her own uncle, Genevieve runs away thinking to commit suicide.
Instead, she is saved by one of the infamous "Witches of Paris" a group of female fortune-tellers and witches who run the occult underground activities of the city. Because Genevieve can see visions in water, La Voisin sees promise and trains her, creates an alter ego - The Marquies de la Morville - and helps her become the most famous and successful fortune-teller in Paris.
The success is good and bad, as it gives Genevieve the independance that virtually no women in Paris at the time enjoyed. But it also thrusts her into the merciless intigues and jockeying for position and prominence that characterized the court of Louis the fourteenth, making her position continously precarious.
As I said this would have been a really good story if it had been shorter. I felt the author included vast amounts of unnecessary details about everything that detracted from my overall enjoyment of the book. I didn't need to have a minute description of every gown, every carriage, every room, and even the weather in every scene of the story to have followed and enjoyed it. The detail became tedious very quickly, and I really feel this could have, and should have, been 300 pages rather than 500.
If the detail had been left out I would have given this three stars. It's an enjoyable story, but you have to skim over all the masses of irrelevant details to just read the actual plot and keep the book from dragging unbearably. This story would definitely have benefitted from a good editor to remove a lot of the extraneous detail.
wealhtheow's review
3.0
Seventeenth-century Paris, but with a twist--magic is real, and the main character can see visions of the future. The story covers about three years, during which time Genevieve grows from a snarky, naive girl with lots of classical knowledge to a woman who must use all manners of intelligence to survive. I devoured this book.
_barb's review
4.0
Actual rating: 4.3/5 stars
Okay, so this book was on -50% sale and I thought, well, why not buy it? It doesn't cost much after all...
The story follows young Genevieve Pasquier, known to others as Madame de Morville, who works with Paris' 17th century witch - La Voisin
I've seen that people say that this book could have been shorter, that it's too slow and things like that.
But I really, really liked it.
So, the truth is that I'm REALLY falling in love with books taking place in the past(mainly thanks to [a:Marija Jurić Zagorka|964387|Marija Jurić Zagorka|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1279565606p2/964387.jpg] and [a:C.W. Gortner|169656|C.W. Gortner|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1223356684p2/169656.jpg] 's [b:The Confessions of Catherine de Medici|9869585|The Confessions of Catherine de Medici|C.W. Gortner|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1291934839s/9869585.jpg|7007904]
This book is very well-written, very detailed, very interesting and very...creepy, in a very special way?
As much as I loved it, knowing that La Vosin was real - and many other people mentioned in the book - really disturbed me.
I was thinking about that for DAYS after reading "The Oracle Glass"
What I'd like to note is that I really like the way Genevieve's character developed through the entire story, her view of things and actually realising some very important stuff and actually confirming us things we assumed they happened(and sometimes revealing things we never thought they could possibly happen)
Anyway, HUGE recommendation who like this kind of literature.
And to those who don't.
Okay, so this book was on -50% sale and I thought, well, why not buy it? It doesn't cost much after all...
The story follows young Genevieve Pasquier, known to others as Madame de Morville, who works with Paris' 17th century witch - La Voisin
I've seen that people say that this book could have been shorter, that it's too slow and things like that.
But I really, really liked it.
So, the truth is that I'm REALLY falling in love with books taking place in the past(mainly thanks to [a:Marija Jurić Zagorka|964387|Marija Jurić Zagorka|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1279565606p2/964387.jpg] and [a:C.W. Gortner|169656|C.W. Gortner|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1223356684p2/169656.jpg] 's [b:The Confessions of Catherine de Medici|9869585|The Confessions of Catherine de Medici|C.W. Gortner|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1291934839s/9869585.jpg|7007904]
This book is very well-written, very detailed, very interesting and very...creepy, in a very special way?
As much as I loved it, knowing that La Vosin was real - and many other people mentioned in the book - really disturbed me.
I was thinking about that for DAYS after reading "The Oracle Glass"
What I'd like to note is that I really like the way Genevieve's character developed through the entire story, her view of things and actually realising some very important stuff and actually confirming us things we assumed they happened(and sometimes revealing things we never thought they could possibly happen)
Anyway, HUGE recommendation who like this kind of literature.
And to those who don't.