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rattledragons's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
5.0
dtab62's review against another edition
1.0
The other reviews are right. This is such a fascinating subject that it deserves a better treatment than this. The writing is absolutely horrid. This wouldn't get a passing grade in Miss Nash's 7th grade English class. How it ever came to be published is a mystery.
mattgorski's review against another edition
4.0
good read, very interesting story of the colony - great peak at life in that era.
fastediting's review against another edition
1.0
Atrociously written, nigh unreadable. I really wanted this to be a great book — the lost colony of Roanoke is so interesting. But I couldn’t make it past the first chapter. Sentence fragments. Littering the text. Breathlessly. Rhetorical questions? Why not? If I were still teaching writing, I’d use an excerpt from this book to show how you can break the rules, very occasionally, for effect — but overdoing it just makes the text amateurish and unreadable.
I don’t believe in persevering through painful books that I’m only reading for pleasure. Stopped reading.
I don’t believe in persevering through painful books that I’m only reading for pleasure. Stopped reading.
cgonya1's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
4.0
sjchaima's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
3.0
gigihotch's review against another edition
3.0
Overall, I thought the author presented a very well-researched and plausible explanation for what happened to the Roanoke Colony. It seemed like there wasn't much information available about the Colony, so I was surprised she was able to write an entire book about it. A few major complaints that almost prevented me from finishing the book:
- The first 2/3 of the book was pretty dry, and it finally picked up at the end.
- The author used italics to when quoting various sources, mostly in the middle of sentences. That prevented her from being able to use italics for emphasis, and I found it to be very distracting.
- The author had the worst editor of all time, who allowed her to get away with fragmented sentences...throughout the entire book. Here is an example: "Walsingham is the Queen's Principal Secretary. Secretary of State. Master politician. Machiavellian." It drove me crazy!
-The author presented the story of Roanoke like it was a game of Clue, which trivialized the events and made it seem childish (the cover looks like it was going for a middle-school demographic).
So if you can get past those things, I would recommend this book!
- The first 2/3 of the book was pretty dry, and it finally picked up at the end.
- The author used italics to when quoting various sources, mostly in the middle of sentences. That prevented her from being able to use italics for emphasis, and I found it to be very distracting.
- The author had the worst editor of all time, who allowed her to get away with fragmented sentences...throughout the entire book. Here is an example: "Walsingham is the Queen's Principal Secretary. Secretary of State. Master politician. Machiavellian." It drove me crazy!
-The author presented the story of Roanoke like it was a game of Clue, which trivialized the events and made it seem childish (the cover looks like it was going for a middle-school demographic).
So if you can get past those things, I would recommend this book!
catladylover94's review against another edition
5.0
pretty good I still wonder what happened to the colony and all 115 people
chantelbrenna's review against another edition
4.0
I don't read many historical books, but this one was a really good one and I would recommend it to anyone interested in this part of history.