November 08, 2014

Book Review - Maplecroft by Cherie Priest

I stayed up most of the night, partly due to reading Maplecroft, a more than 'weird' account of Lizzy Borden, a fictitious fantasy story by Cherie Priest, and partly due to the recounting this story in my head, causing my tossing and turning.  The details of each chapter's/character's account is to the point of tiresome, and I’m only on page 68 of 435...haven't got a clue where this tale is leading...mysteries of the walking dead?...of all the far fetched mysteries!!

I'm researching the facts, just out of curiosity. I've read a couple of Priest's Steampunk novels, which I enjoyed, but in THIS novel her word usage and sentence structure is very different...she literally immerses herself into a Victorian period of place and character.


Maplecroft does have a few of the facts thrown into the story, attaching this family/murder to give it its base...not a lot of facts were gathered from that period of the century, so embellishment is left to this author’s discretion. I simply can't get over Priest’s writing style, it is so period - late 1800's - and with a Jane Austen flare to boot...but no matter how interesting the story, it still tends to sink me into the mire of tedious verbiage---I’m not an Austen fan---so I tend to skim and read fast...which isn't my norm.

To my dismay, I had to shut the pages on Cherie Priest's novel, Maplecroft...175 pages in. I gave it everything I could muster to try and read this book....Pure fantasy inhabited Priest's Lizzy Borden story with oozing slime and gore, topped off with horrific putrid odors repeatedly revealed to the reader--Revolting to the 'enth degree! Then add tedium to the over all murky redundancy - Character chapter after character chapter after character chapter, with each character recounting the same tiresome tale aud nauseum.  

I'll be forthright, I didn't know what direction Priest would take this story, but I was open to finding out.  Well...I found out, and that was enough for my sensitive disposition.


No comments:

Post a Comment

I Am a Liberal

This sums up my beliefs.  I am not the original writer of this, although I have altered some words.  Ins tead of using the reference to “...