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A review by jacqueline1989
Beauty Like the Night by Liz Carlyle
3.0
Definitely a good story! Overall, I can’t bring myself to say that I fell in love with the book itself, but reading Beauty Like the Night was not at all a waste of time. I adored the characters, finding myself to truly enjoy Helene’s strength and Cam’s devotion to his daughter, Ariane. The plot was very emotionally charged, focusing on Ariane as being the central force that reunites Cam and Helene. Their story is one of life long love, and was heartwarming to read about.
Strangely, I only have one single complaint to lodge against this book. It wasn’t the characters, for I connected with all, even the secondary characters such as Cam’s brother, Bentley, and Catherine, Cam’s sister. It wasn’t the plot, for such was two-pronged and very interesting on both fronts. It wasn’t even the writing style as a whole, because Carlyle wrote with a distinct emotion and detail that made the book very fun. No, instead, it was merely one particular facet to Carlyle’s style. The story, to me, felt much too elongated. There were moments that detail and emotion were extrapolated to an unnecessary degree. The ending of the book, I felt, suffered from this very issue greatly. Such longwinded scenes and detail was, sadly, what made this novel only rank at 3 stars. I don’t particularly mind a drawn-out story, and I would’ve probably found myself enjoying such in this book if the primary love-plot between Cam and Helene hadn’t been essentially finished by the last half of the novel.
But, even still, despite this, the story was very fun. I enjoyed the book, and found many smile worthy scenes and moments, both between the characters and within the plot itself, to occur. The element of a surprising plot twist at the end of the book was, while partly foreseeable, still very interesting. A good story all around.
Strangely, I only have one single complaint to lodge against this book. It wasn’t the characters, for I connected with all, even the secondary characters such as Cam’s brother, Bentley, and Catherine, Cam’s sister. It wasn’t the plot, for such was two-pronged and very interesting on both fronts. It wasn’t even the writing style as a whole, because Carlyle wrote with a distinct emotion and detail that made the book very fun. No, instead, it was merely one particular facet to Carlyle’s style. The story, to me, felt much too elongated. There were moments that detail and emotion were extrapolated to an unnecessary degree. The ending of the book, I felt, suffered from this very issue greatly. Such longwinded scenes and detail was, sadly, what made this novel only rank at 3 stars. I don’t particularly mind a drawn-out story, and I would’ve probably found myself enjoying such in this book if the primary love-plot between Cam and Helene hadn’t been essentially finished by the last half of the novel.
But, even still, despite this, the story was very fun. I enjoyed the book, and found many smile worthy scenes and moments, both between the characters and within the plot itself, to occur. The element of a surprising plot twist at the end of the book was, while partly foreseeable, still very interesting. A good story all around.