 |
| Final Rating: 3.5/5 |
Remarkable figure of history… not so remarkable of a book
Mary Anning is one figure from the past I would love sit down with and ask a hundred questions to. She has become a favorite name from history to read and learn about after I was first introduced to her last year while reading Deborah Cadbury’s intensely fascinating Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric (a work I highly recommend to anyone and everyone). This early palaeontology contributor's personal story is remarkable in itself and there is so much potential there for a completely enthralling novel that needs little embellishing and unnecessary froth, unfortunately I didn’t find that in Remarkable Creatures and thought this reimagining incomplete, simplistic and too geared toward certain audiences. In the beginning I had a completely opposite attitude and couldn’t wait to put my earphone in and rejoin 19th-century Lyme Regis and the wonderful descriptions of monumental discoveries and locale, unfurling storyline and convincing writing but then something shifted and I began to seriously dislike certain characters and found Mary Anning’s imagined voice, narrative sections and personality wanting and surprisingly weak, Elizabeth Philpot’s narration became grating, acidic and completely unnecessary at parts and by the end I was involved in an entirely disappointing series of events that took away from the initial allure of the story and settled on the many imagined rescues and romances of Mary Anning featuring little of Mary herself but plenty of needless issues tossed in the middle to create a dull abrupt finale that felt forced after such a spectacular beginning. Such a shame, I guess my hunt for a fictional novel worthy of Mary Anning and all her brilliant discoveries and remarkable life-story starts again.
-purchased and listened to Audible version
No comments:
Post a Comment