nekokat reviewed In sunlight and in shadow by Mark Helprin
Review of 'In sunlight and in shadow' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Incredibly, unbelievably, ridiculously, offensively bad.
Made all the worse because of the ways it's reminiscent of [b:Winter's Tale|12967|Winter's Tale|Mark Helprin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1399135618s/12967.jpg|1965767].
The protagonists are fundamentally unlikeable; their "struggles" comically unrelatable (oh, the burden of wealth! gosh it must be hard to be perfect in every single way but have a momentarily hard time achieving recognition! wow life is rough when you have a problem you could easily solve with your wealthy wife's money but refuse to accept it!); the overarching themes are anger-inducing (mainly glorification of war and incredibly sexist idealization of women); the writing is tiresome, repetitive and full of pointless tangents.
The ending hinted that there was possibly a good book in here somewhere (as, for the first time, we get some insight into the effect the war had on Harry)... but it was not this one.
I think from now on I will just pretend that any non-Winter's …
Incredibly, unbelievably, ridiculously, offensively bad.
Made all the worse because of the ways it's reminiscent of [b:Winter's Tale|12967|Winter's Tale|Mark Helprin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1399135618s/12967.jpg|1965767].
The protagonists are fundamentally unlikeable; their "struggles" comically unrelatable (oh, the burden of wealth! gosh it must be hard to be perfect in every single way but have a momentarily hard time achieving recognition! wow life is rough when you have a problem you could easily solve with your wealthy wife's money but refuse to accept it!); the overarching themes are anger-inducing (mainly glorification of war and incredibly sexist idealization of women); the writing is tiresome, repetitive and full of pointless tangents.
The ending hinted that there was possibly a good book in here somewhere (as, for the first time, we get some insight into the effect the war had on Harry)... but it was not this one.
I think from now on I will just pretend that any non-Winter's Tale Helprin books do not exist.
