The Book of Air and Shadows
I finished The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber this afternoon, and boy am I glad to be done with it. The characters were unbelievable, the story was slow, and the writing was stilted.
I could not stand how one main character provided commentary on how scattered of a memoir-writer he is. Equally annoying was the other main character’s propensity to analyze every situation and course of action as though it was part of a movie script. I gradually became used to these self-referential first-person perspectives, but it still made me feel stabby.
One main character goes on unnecessarily about his numerous sexual conquests, and another is involved in an awkward relationship with an untrustworthy woman who had tattooed a cipher grille onto her inner thigh:
“She stopped his mouth with her tongue and pressed [the] long-lost cipher grille against his groin.”
At which point I threw the book down and exclaimed to Steve that my book had become so ridiculous I couldn’t stand it.
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