This book took a while longer to read for the simple reason that it was quite a bit longer than my first book of this year. More than double, actually. Not that I should be justifying myself to the handful of people who at the maximum are reading this blog. Maybe that’s just me justifying it to myself. Also, I’m only getting to the writing of this review a couple of weeks after finishing the book.
For much of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and expecte to give the book, when all said and done, a rating in the 80’s, but as the book dragged on and seemed to become bogged down in winding up the ending. So much so that I felt trapped in a story that I wanted to end. The last couple of hundred pages need never have been written and there was a natural ending to the book that Chabon chose to ignore. So, as you’ll see, the rating dipped down into the 70’s, which is still respectable.
It’s certainly been the best book I’ve read this year and up until that last hundred or so pages, I thought it might be the best book I would read this year. It’s not as good as the two Chabon books I read last year, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union or Wonder Boys, but by a nose.
Score: 73/100
Book I am Reading Now: Reaper’s Gale by Steven Erikson