Helpful Score: 1
This book was very British and very boring! It was just too wordy for me. Everything was desribed in much detail and the wordiness took away from the plot. The descriptions of the gardens were very visual but not exciting enough to make up for the dry plot.
I tried to get into this book I really did. Usually I am able to work though a book but after 100 pages I couldn't do it anymore. For me there wasn't any kind of flow to the book the language was choppy and the story didn't flow at all. I was disappointed I couldn't make it though because the blurb I read about the book made it sound very intersting but for me there wasn't enough happening in the first 100 pages to kept me intrested.
This is a pretty good book. The garden itself was described in some detail, but the pitcture helped the most. Has some intrique in it. Overall reall good book.
I enjoyed this book, and found it worth reading. It wasn't a "great" book, but still it kept my attention and I read it fairly quickly.
Fantastic read! The mythology and garden descriptios alone make this book worthwhile, but it actually had a nice plot with a few twists that caught me off guard. Well written and engaging language kept me drawn to each chapter as the plot unfolded. Nicely done.
I enjoyed the bits and snatches of information I hadn't known about Italy, and I give the book credit for holding my interest long enough so I actually finished it--which happens less and less frequently these days.
Still, I found it annoying in places, puzzling and "adolescent" in others. For example, there is a brief but torrid scene in which the main character (a 22-year-old man) has sex with a middle-aged woman whose inn he has stayed at for a few days, and then it turns out that she has not had sex for 8 whole years (but she chose *him* to break that record with!) Later, she is terrified that someone in the small community she belongs to will find out about it, so she begs him several times not to tell anyone. Now wouldn't you think that if she would be in such terrible trouble if the news got out, she would not jump into bed with a man until she knew him well enough to be sure he wouldn't tell? I know, I know, you shouldn't be too logical when reading a book of this caliber! In any event, this sex scene is gratuitous and has nothing to do with the plot and has the scent of being in the book only because the publisher or writer wanted to be able to claim it had sex in it.
Another thing that bothers me about the book is that, for all the description of the garden, when Adam finally explains what the its features and the references to ancient myth really mean, it falls flat. The book contains too much that is mere distraction and it would have been better, had it been shorter, IMO.
Still, I found it annoying in places, puzzling and "adolescent" in others. For example, there is a brief but torrid scene in which the main character (a 22-year-old man) has sex with a middle-aged woman whose inn he has stayed at for a few days, and then it turns out that she has not had sex for 8 whole years (but she chose *him* to break that record with!) Later, she is terrified that someone in the small community she belongs to will find out about it, so she begs him several times not to tell anyone. Now wouldn't you think that if she would be in such terrible trouble if the news got out, she would not jump into bed with a man until she knew him well enough to be sure he wouldn't tell? I know, I know, you shouldn't be too logical when reading a book of this caliber! In any event, this sex scene is gratuitous and has nothing to do with the plot and has the scent of being in the book only because the publisher or writer wanted to be able to claim it had sex in it.
Another thing that bothers me about the book is that, for all the description of the garden, when Adam finally explains what the its features and the references to ancient myth really mean, it falls flat. The book contains too much that is mere distraction and it would have been better, had it been shorter, IMO.
Mark Mills had a great talent. he leads the read every whick way and you think you know who done it and then he leads you in another direction. This book made me want to go to tuscany. This book made me want to go to florence and to veiw more gardens.
