A review by 4gdad
The Dante Chamber by Matthew Pearl

3.0

One of my favorite books is the Dante Club. After reading the Dante Club I became somewhat obsessed with owning a copy of Longfellows translation of the Divine Comedy. I scoured eBay until I found an 1891 edition. I always hoped that there would be a sequel and was so excited when I learned about The Dante Chamber. I wanted to recapture the same feelings I enjoyed reading the first novel. Unfortunately, this did not happen for me, I really struggled getting through this novel. I just could not relate to the characters like I did in the Dante Club novel. The book had too much backstory I found uninteresting and I found the story just moved along really slow. Finally, I am still confused with the very end of the novel and not sure I understood what exactly happened. It was not a bad book by no means, but just did not live up to the expectations I had based on my love of the first book. This being said, I would love to see more books written in this series if it can be done and I will probably still give the Dante Chamber a second try by listening instead of reading the novel this time.