A review by smiley938
Devil Water by Rudolf Steiner, Anya Seton
3.0
The overall verdict: decent but would not recommend.
It took me a good 100 pages before I got into this book. Anya Seton throws a lot of unimportant names at you in the beginning which is confusing and burdensome. Once I got into the book, it was a real page turner. However, there are a few issues that I can think of (major spoilers ahead):
The character development is very strange and arguably absent. Seton moves through the story by using different character point of views. Normally, this is a great literary tactic. In this case, it never really connected for me. One minute, you're Charles. The next minute, you're James. Then you're Betty. Then you're James again for a long time, get to know him, start to like him, and then he dies. Then you're back to Charles. The jumping around made the character development scant and choppy. I never really got into the mindset of the character because you get so little time with each one. The POV is much more constant by the end of the book (primarily only Charles and Jenny), but still never really works.
Throughout the book, I found myself questioning why the character was acting like this. Robbie, for instance, has the most shocking turnaround. For 99% of the book, he's this "perfect" guy who is ambitious, kind, loving, gentle, loyal... and then for like one page, he unforgivably attacks Jenny. Um. What? Not believable.
And then Jenny - the star of the novel... she has absolutely no personality. Well, actually, her personality is being pretty. Almost all the descriptions about her and what people think about her revolve around how beautiful she is. For someone with such an interesting upbringing, she sure is boring. She also takes back Robbie in the end and is overall just a terrible example of a female heroine. On the day of her and Robbie's wedding, she suddenly panics and is terrified of him. This is probably Seton's attempt at foreshadowing, but it was completely out of character in this part of the book and did not elevate the storyline at all.
Considering the overall breadth of the book, I enjoyed how epic it was. Seton covers a lot of years. However, I prefer a little more "historical" in my "historical fiction." Granted, Seton clearly did a ton of research on her characters but there just isn't enough historical information about many of the main characters, particularly Jenny and Robbie. I don't fault Seton for making most of it up. It is fiction after all. I'm just warning you that if you think you're going to learn about the Jacobite rebellion, you won't learn much. I'd say this book was 20% historical and 80% chick lit. Unfortunately, you read about 300 pages before you realize how much of a chick lit book this is. The ending is very disappointing.
It took me a good 100 pages before I got into this book. Anya Seton throws a lot of unimportant names at you in the beginning which is confusing and burdensome. Once I got into the book, it was a real page turner. However, there are a few issues that I can think of (major spoilers ahead):
The character development is very strange and arguably absent. Seton moves through the story by using different character point of views. Normally, this is a great literary tactic. In this case, it never really connected for me. One minute, you're Charles. The next minute, you're James. Then you're Betty. Then you're James again for a long time, get to know him, start to like him, and then he dies. Then you're back to Charles. The jumping around made the character development scant and choppy. I never really got into the mindset of the character because you get so little time with each one. The POV is much more constant by the end of the book (primarily only Charles and Jenny), but still never really works.
Throughout the book, I found myself questioning why the character was acting like this. Robbie, for instance, has the most shocking turnaround. For 99% of the book, he's this "perfect" guy who is ambitious, kind, loving, gentle, loyal... and then for like one page, he unforgivably attacks Jenny. Um. What? Not believable.
And then Jenny - the star of the novel... she has absolutely no personality. Well, actually, her personality is being pretty. Almost all the descriptions about her and what people think about her revolve around how beautiful she is. For someone with such an interesting upbringing, she sure is boring. She also takes back Robbie in the end and is overall just a terrible example of a female heroine. On the day of her and Robbie's wedding, she suddenly panics and is terrified of him. This is probably Seton's attempt at foreshadowing, but it was completely out of character in this part of the book and did not elevate the storyline at all.
Considering the overall breadth of the book, I enjoyed how epic it was. Seton covers a lot of years. However, I prefer a little more "historical" in my "historical fiction." Granted, Seton clearly did a ton of research on her characters but there just isn't enough historical information about many of the main characters, particularly Jenny and Robbie. I don't fault Seton for making most of it up. It is fiction after all. I'm just warning you that if you think you're going to learn about the Jacobite rebellion, you won't learn much. I'd say this book was 20% historical and 80% chick lit. Unfortunately, you read about 300 pages before you realize how much of a chick lit book this is. The ending is very disappointing.