A review by n_ck
The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel

dark reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

This book took me almost half a year to finish, with breaks. It is long. It is wordy and detail-filled. It doesn’t have the pacing and energy of earlier entries, but it also chronicles a different era of Cromwell’s life. One where he has risen beyond all expectation, transcended his — and even England’s past — and sewed his own fall with same tragic flaws that made him great. Some of the sad pleasures of reading this is noting the small changes in Cromwell that prone him to lose his place, like things he certainly wouldn’t have done in his prime. He’s a flawed, captivating character who I’ve spent hours and hours with since start wolf hall about a year ago. I’ll miss him and I will be forever grateful that Mantel ended her career with such a remarkable trilogy. She was one of our best writers and we’re poorer without her.