A review by jellter
Imperium by Robert Harris
4.0
I was always interested in learning abouut this period of Roman history - the origins of politics, law, bribery, betrayal, subterfuge and whatnot. It also helped that it was a fictionalised historical account of Cicero, a man who I knew of to quite an extent but not the nitty-gritty.
The size of the book was not the problem per se but rather just the sheer amount of characters and specific terminology, which to be fair, the glossary did provide insight into. But perhaps I just was not able to retain the information as well as I thought I could but I would flick to the back of the book so many times until I eventually gave up and relied on my context cues. Nonetheless, Robert Harris' prose is easy to follow and I really did feel immersed in Rome.
I must also mention that despite it being heavily political, there were genuine moments of tension where I could not stop turning the page. Whether I will continue the trilogy is a whole other matter that I will tackle when the time arises - as one of the other reasons why I began reading the series was because the covers are so amazing - but I definitely don't feel like my time was wasted and I had a great time.
The size of the book was not the problem per se but rather just the sheer amount of characters and specific terminology, which to be fair, the glossary did provide insight into. But perhaps I just was not able to retain the information as well as I thought I could but I would flick to the back of the book so many times until I eventually gave up and relied on my context cues. Nonetheless, Robert Harris' prose is easy to follow and I really did feel immersed in Rome.
I must also mention that despite it being heavily political, there were genuine moments of tension where I could not stop turning the page. Whether I will continue the trilogy is a whole other matter that I will tackle when the time arises - as one of the other reasons why I began reading the series was because the covers are so amazing - but I definitely don't feel like my time was wasted and I had a great time.