Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.75 stars. ALMOST a 4.
A lot of people really, really like this book, and I admit, it was good. For the most part. It had an engaging plot and respectably fleshed out characters - whose own plot lines interconnected in interesting ways. Dialogue was decent. Setting was good - Russia is always good for a tragic tale. Do you sense a big "but" coming? You're right. ... BUT I just didn't click with the entirety of the thing. I don't want to call it a slog, but it was teetering on the edge. You know that compulsion you get when you find a book that you just CAN'T put down? Yeah, I didn't get that with this. There were too many irksome things in it.
For example, I especially got frustrated with the tsar's character plot line. What the heck? That poor guy got trapped into some stuff he had no input on and no possible way to escape. He, in my opinion, was the most misunderstood, tragic and innocent character in the whole book. And do we find out what happens to him after the end? Nope. Nope-ity nope.
Wanda, too, - in fact, her brothers as well - were all tragic characters - and they are left at the end doing what?
There just seemed to be a lot of loose ends at the end. Nothing was sufficiently and satisfyingly ended.
Honestly, the only real reason I kept reading is because so many of my friends gave this book 5 stars. It deserved that rating on the "cleanness" scale. It had zero swearing and sex. But it was a bit disappointing. Sorry, guys.

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