Author: Michael Ennis
Version: ARC
Publication Date: September 11, 2012
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 9780385536318
Number of Pages: 416Genre: Historical Fiction
REVIEW: Alright I was going to try and do this all proper like with a synopsis and everything. But I just can't, mainly because I read 2/3rds of it and I still don't have a clear idea of what it's about. I went into it thinking that it was going to be a murder mystery that Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli team up to solve. It was also supposed to be the story behind Machiavelli's 'The Prince.' I was kind of excited about the whole thing. But I ended up being severely disappointed. It turned into this complicated, confusing account of something that I can't quite figure out. It's a bad thing when I have read most of the book and had time to think about it and still have no idea what happened.
There were parts that kept me interested and wanting to read more. Those ended up being few and far between unfortunately and the rest was white noise. I honestly found myself blanking out a lot and not remembering what it was that I had read. I really didn't like the way things were put together and the way the story stopped and started so much.
The writing was mediocre and rather confusing with Italian words thrown in with no explanations. The worst part of it was that there was no poetry to it, it was dry and read rather like a textbook, boring. I don't want to be rude but this is how I felt while reading it. I found that I stopped caring what happened and now that I put the book down I don't think that I will ever have to pick it up again. I wanted to read it all the way through in order not only to find out 'who done it' but also to give a fair review. But I just couldn't do it. I read enough to know that I just don't care and I can't recommend it.
It's a shame because it is such a good basis for a story, it had such potential. I am highly disappointed in the whole thing though and feel as if my time was wasted. I know that you are probably wondering if I disliked it so much why did I read so much of it. To answer that I have to say that I was hoping it was going to get better. I had faith and found eventually that I hit a wall and had to stop. And though I gave it only one star on goodreads it wasn't really that I didn't like it, it was more that I just didn't care.
Anyway there that is, a bad review. I was recently asked if I ever gave a bad review and usually the answer is no because if I don't like something I stop reading it. And I don't think that it is fair to give a review off of a few chapters of a book. With this one however I felt that since I did read so much of it I could give my honest opinion and still say I read it. I hope you guys don't mind a bad review but I feel that it is my job here to not only give you suggestions as to what books to read but also to be as honest as possible as to what books to stay away from. Unfortunately this is one of the latter.
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