A review by dianapiskor
The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

While well written, this story is considered and marketed as a historical thriller, but oftentimes I found myself not thrilled by the story. Each character has their own chapters and POV and there are a bunch of flashbacks. As a result of the story’s structure, I didn’t really care about the characters and for the first 30% of the book all the characters has the same observations, which just made the story repetitive. Once the characters became distinctive, the story brought in too many things and made the plot disjointed. And then once I would start to get into the story, the character would change. It was frustrating. 

Towards the end, it became more engaging and engrossing, but I was already disengaged from the story by that point. I think the author did a ton of research and the details and concept were there, but ultimately, this book wasn’t for me. 
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