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A review by bookbeaut
New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear
2.0
DNF, though for purposes of my challenge count I will mark a book as read if I've completed 75% of it.
This book had so much potential but ultimately, bored me to the point that I realized I didn't even care about how it ended. That's very hard to do with a story that had elements I'm all about - paranormal, steampunk, lady sorcerer detectives - but sadly, it fell so flat. All those things were done in such a mundane & uninteresting way - for all the talk of Abby Irene's wand, her magic use was restricted to putting things in bowls on a table & then coming to some conclusion from it. And never have I ever seen vampires done in such a boring way - they're not my fave generally speaking but they're usually at least interesting. The final death knell for me was the episodic way the story was told - it was jarring & didn't allow the book to carry any sort of narrative along.
Two stars because it wasn't HORRIBLE, it was just..boring. And that's almost worse.
This book had so much potential but ultimately, bored me to the point that I realized I didn't even care about how it ended. That's very hard to do with a story that had elements I'm all about - paranormal, steampunk, lady sorcerer detectives - but sadly, it fell so flat. All those things were done in such a mundane & uninteresting way - for all the talk of Abby Irene's wand, her magic use was restricted to putting things in bowls on a table & then coming to some conclusion from it. And never have I ever seen vampires done in such a boring way - they're not my fave generally speaking but they're usually at least interesting. The final death knell for me was the episodic way the story was told - it was jarring & didn't allow the book to carry any sort of narrative along.
Two stars because it wasn't HORRIBLE, it was just..boring. And that's almost worse.