books, travel, nursing, and all of life's in-betweens
After reading She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan, I stopped and wondered if I read the same book as everyone else. I thought, “Something is wrong with me.” So many people whose reviews I trust had enjoyed the book. Me, on the other hand?
I can’t deny that She Who Became the Sun is an ambitious novel that captures the atmosphere of fourteenth-century China. However, I often found myself lost, bored, and frustrated. In short?
C | Has a book disappointed you because it just had so much potential but never fully reached it?
That’s how I feel about Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb. It is a gothic, historical fiction, mystery novel that is blended in with a very typical ghost story. It tells the tale of Kate and the woman whose body she discovered. It jumps between POVs, with Kate dreaming of the past and uncovering the secrets and events that lead to the woman’s death.
The concept was pretty cool. But execution wise? It was weak and didn’t have enough substance. A huge part of the issue lies in the pacing and the fact that we were told more than we were shown. There was also the fact that the dead woman whose story is the driving force in this novel had the personality of a rock while she was alive.
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