superdilettante's review against another edition
I loved this at its start, but found I lost interest sometime around the “mysterious strength-giving substance” portion.
jessi_quinn's review
adventurous
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
librarykirsten's review against another edition
3.0
This book just made me very cross, for reasons of being a librarian and having Opinions about books,* in ways which meant I couldn't really enjoy this but I appreciated what it was trying to do.
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Spoiler
Rants my book club got: that's not how copyright works! The materiality of books matters! The labour of librarians and archivists and historians and textual editors matters! Why would you create an organisation of radical queer literary time-travellers and only address them in one page and not make them the subject of the entire novel?uriah's review against another edition
It's just felt like a proper slog unfortunately, the concept is very cool and i have enjoyed snippets but not enough to continue.
scottflanary's review against another edition
2.0
Not for me. I appreciate the author’s attempt to rewrite cisgendered, white, male historical fiction but the structure (a book within a book) and the basic retelling of the original story were lackluster and boring. I was more interested in the B storyline and it really didn’t go anywhere.
blackberrydreams's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to love this book more than I ended up enjoying it. The setup was good, and Jack and Bess were great characters. I liked that the author/manuscript allowed them to be realistic, grey, flawed. Though their plot was pretty good throughout (with the ending especially pulling through; I thought I knew what was going to happen, but I was surprised in a good way by what actually happened instead), I was hoping for more with the Dr. Voth storyline, so I walked away slightly disappointed.
beelzebubbie's review against another edition
5.0
I’m blown away, I am destroyed, torn apart and haphazardly sewn back together, clutching at my heart in my chest and moaning, I am longing to find that better world of rogues and gaolbreakers and history’s wicked and noble re-writers, the fen and the ghost ship, the world outside of time. So grateful for this sexy, cunning, devastating, at times viscerally nauseating, soaring novel. Queerness, civilization, commodification, the expectations placed upon our bodies — an aching tribute to those who have always seen past that, ripping and scrabbling with torn nails to someplace far beyond.
brianklaas's review against another edition
challenging
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
An interesting work of historical fiction saddled by a completely unengaging concurrent narrative of a tiresome scholar’s life in footnotes. It’s an obvious device about LGBTQ lives forced into the margins that’s simply too post-modern for its own good. Jack and Bess are characters while this twin narrative is simply a device.
bookbabebloom's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.0
Shucks, I was really hoping to like this more but it was too graphic and sad for me right now