Reviews

Dreadful. I give up. If I had to endure one more page of this drivel, I would throw it out of the god damn window! Could she get to the point sometime this century?! Does she know that there is a difference between tension and frustration? Did she have an editor? How many times can someone faint just before they are able to dispense some vital piece of information?! And why is communications technology basically the same as in 1992 except with video and without answering machines? And computers for accessing the NHS-database and seemingly nothing else? They invented time travel, but couldn't figure out a more efficient way to communicate?! I guess we can not fault her for failing to envision cell phones. But morse code was already better than this. Hell, pigeons or smoke signals would have been more efficient.

Also, somehow while they have time travel, the historians have forgotten most of what they already knew about the middle ages and seem to be laboring under the same misconceptions that the general public has. And considering how important infectious diseases and public health are to the plot, the understanding of them seems somewhat basic. It seems to me that Willis was so bogged down with minutiae of human interactions, that factual research and the bigger picture of her story have fallen mostly by the wayside.

lynn_pugh's review

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

4.75

asmrbookishnesserin's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.25

enemieseverywhere's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

wildean social farce + academia + time travel + black comedy + oh shit oh fuck + HORROR HORROR HORROR + god's silence + compassion and love

Content Warnings

ava15's review against another edition

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4.25

I loved so many things about this book: the dark academia vibes, the medieval setting, the surprisingly poignant ending; however, I also had some problems with it. For one thing, it could have been much shorter, and there were parts that dragged unnecessarily. For another, the lighthearted tone in the first half did not prepare me at all for how utterly devastating, and at times disturbing, the last quarter of the book was. It was a beautiful story, but the first and second halves felt like completely different books to me. I also had trouble getting into it bc of the perspective switching, but that’s more of a me problem

Content Warnings

threegoodrats's review against another edition

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4.0

My review is here.

shanneyxx's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

Far far too long

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