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A review by willwork4airfare
River God by Wilbur Smith
3.0
This book took me almost two months to read because its most grievous fault is being incredibly long and not… having… chapters?!
Don’t get me wrong, there are occasional page breaks, but they just are not the same thing and make the whole book squeeze into one long stream of words that made it a nightmare to read.
The story is interesting because I love all things Ancient Egypt. But the narrator, Taita, was almost unbearable. The author’s note claims that this is based on real documents, written by the slave himself, so perhaps it is not his fault, but it was exhausting to read the perspective of someone claiming to be a master of every subject under the sun, the fastest, smartest, bestest surgeon, investor, inventor, translator, artist, writer, and so much more— and also completely content with being a slave (to the point of crying and begging not to be released when the subject came up).
The characters are all just caricatures. There is nothing to make you care about any of them individually, just for what they provide to the story.
I honestly don’t know what gave me the strength to finish this one other than my love for Egypt. And I honestly don’t believe I read the same book as everyone rating this 5 stars.
Don’t get me wrong, there are occasional page breaks, but they just are not the same thing and make the whole book squeeze into one long stream of words that made it a nightmare to read.
The story is interesting because I love all things Ancient Egypt. But the narrator, Taita, was almost unbearable. The author’s note claims that this is based on real documents, written by the slave himself, so perhaps it is not his fault, but it was exhausting to read the perspective of someone claiming to be a master of every subject under the sun, the fastest, smartest, bestest surgeon, investor, inventor, translator, artist, writer, and so much more— and also completely content with being a slave (to the point of crying and begging not to be released when the subject came up).
The characters are all just caricatures. There is nothing to make you care about any of them individually, just for what they provide to the story.
I honestly don’t know what gave me the strength to finish this one other than my love for Egypt. And I honestly don’t believe I read the same book as everyone rating this 5 stars.