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octavia_cade's review against another edition
2.0
Well-written, with some lovely passages, yet I couldn't warm to it. The characters are nearly all mildly unpleasant, but I think my real disconnect from the book lies with the main character.
I don't have to like a protagonist but I need to find something interesting about them, and that need is even more crucial when a story's written in the first person, as this is. Claude, our hero, is rather flabbily self-indulgent and absolutely devoid of humour. I simply didn't care what happened to him, and couldn't understand why any of the other characters did. That's a problem that can't be surmounted, to my mind - quite different from the wonderful Mary Reilly, also written by Martin. Hard to believe they're from the same author.
I don't have to like a protagonist but I need to find something interesting about them, and that need is even more crucial when a story's written in the first person, as this is. Claude, our hero, is rather flabbily self-indulgent and absolutely devoid of humour. I simply didn't care what happened to him, and couldn't understand why any of the other characters did. That's a problem that can't be surmounted, to my mind - quite different from the wonderful Mary Reilly, also written by Martin. Hard to believe they're from the same author.
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