The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

This was a book I picked up at the library because it was sitting in a pile called "books that might scare you." I'm not sure about you, but I like scary books.

So anyway, this book. I picked it up and thought "This should keep me busy awhile, it's like 800 pages!" 

(As a side note, I usually can get through a book within a matter of days... like two days.) 

I checked it out, and when I got home, I cracked it open and started reading. 

While I was making my way through the first few chapters, I started to recognize the story. I'm not sure where I heard about this book, but I remember someone telling me about this book they were reading, and how awesome it was. That was when I really got excited, because, now I had a reccomendation....sort of. 

But, I found that I was disapointed with the first part of the book. I felt like it was moving really slowly, and that the author kept throwing in irrelevent details. I just couldn't get into the story. But, I kept reading. At this point I had had several people say how good the book was, and so I figured it oughta get better eventually, right?

Sort of. 

So the book is set in three different time periods. It follows, through a series of letters and stories, three separate historian's quest to find the truth about Vlad the Impaler, Aka Dracula. 

What was weird to me, was that because the book was set up the way it was, following three different people, in different time periods, I, as a reader, knew that certain characters were obviously okay. This was frustrating, because it took out part of the unknown...the part that is scary. 

On the other hand, following three separate stories was a great way to set up this book, in the historical sense. I really like history, but sometimes it can drag on. I felt like the author did a really great job of switching between the stories, so that when one was getting really deep into the history of something (and I was starting to get bored) a new chapter would bring a breath of fresh air. 

Having said that, however, I feel as though this book could have been cut by 100 pages or more, and still have been engaging and informative. There were times that the book seemed to drag on, and then other times when it was simplified WAY too much. I feel that the pacing of a book is important, and I'll be honest, there were times I felt like the author got bored with her writing. 

For example, the historians were on a quest, right? They would discover artificats and documents, and even people to help them on this quest. I felt like there were times that we really got to tour the whole artifact, or be invited into a new character's life for awhile, and other times, I felt like the author got tired of discovering the new characters, and so it was just "And then they met this person and they were cool and it helped a lot".

The descriptions, for the most part, were really great, and it was nice because I have never been to most of the places described, so reading in so much detail about them was helpful. 

The characters were well-developed and I really enjoyed watching them grow and learn, as I was. I appreciated though, that even though most of the characters were WAY more educated than I was, I didn't feel stupid reading the book. I felt like I was learning all about history too...I just didn't have to write a disseratation like they did. 

My last point, and probably biggest point of frustration with this book was about the ending. 

The ending of this book, for probably the last three chapters, and epilogue, sucked. And I mean sucked like Dracula. 

To preface this, I should explain that I think the ending is one of the two most important pieces of a story. The beginning is THE most important, but the ending is a very close second.  

The ending for this story was SO disapointing to me. It felt like there wasn't a climax at the end, and that it just was. It just ended. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that after reading that much, and investing so much, the ending didn't live up to the rest of the book. If there was anywhere I would have fixed the pacing...if I could only pick one place, it would have been there. 

Over all, I would give this book a 5/10. It was entertaining enough to finish, and it had engaging characters, but I wouldn't read it again, and I would be careful to reccomend this to people. 

If you are looking to a book written at an easy to follow pace, with a little mystery, and a LOT of history, then this is the book for you. If not, well, stick with me, I am reading like a madwoman now. 

Read on. 

H. 

The Devil in The White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed History by Eric Larson

Woah, talk about a title.
The Devil in the White City, is a book about two men. The first, Daniel Burnham, the architect behind the building The World's Fair in Chicago. The second, and the reason I picked this little gem up, was H.H. Holmes, America's first serial killer.
The book is non-fiction, but it reads like a novel.
I really enjoyed this book. It is set up a little differently, but for the topics, I felt that it was a good outline. Pretty much every other chapter is about one of the two men. It flips back and forth between the different story lines, but every once in awhile the stories cross paths. For example, in one of the architect's sections, there are references to H.H. Holme's "World's Fair Hotel." The flipping can get tiresome, but in some respects it gives a nice change of pace right when it's necessary. I wil be honest however, there were some architecture sections I skipped becuase the murder sections were just too interesting.
Over all I would give this book an 6/10.
It was a great read, and well paced. The language wasn't too elevated, but it was at a competent level.
Every once in a while, the author would throw in a dash of humor, and I for one appreciate that. I really felt like the author and editors did a really great job of crafting each sentence. There were sections that felt a little repetative, almost as if the author had written two paragraphs about the same thing and stuck them in separate sections. I found that frustrating, but it wasn't a problem more than once or twice.
I liked the arcitecture sections, becuase I felt like the people in the section were personable. I really don't know much about architecture, but I do feel like I understand the challenges of building things in the 1800s a little better.
Also, I learned a LOT about the World's Fair in Chicago. Did you know that Shredded Wheat and Cracker Jacks were brought to this fair? I didn't. I also learned about the Ferris Wheel and how it's creator's wife was on the first turn. Pretty cool stuff.
SO back to the reason I picked up this book.
H.H. Holmes, or Henry Mudgett (I'd take an alias too with a name like Mudgett)
Holmes sparked my interest while I was in school working on a YA horror novel. I started doing research on serial killers in history and stumbled across a documentary about him.
He was a creepy dude, but no one figured it. He is now classified as a psycopath, but back in his day people didn't know what that was.
I won't give too much away about his story, but I will tell you this.
I was impressed with the way the author talked about his crimes, without getting super graphic or disturbing. I mean, he was a disturbed young man, but I didn't feel like I had witnessed first hand the crimes, In some cases Larson described some of the bodies found, but he did so with tact, I felt.
Most of the time, since not all the disappearances have been proved to have anything to do with Holmes, Larson just kind of alluded to them.
"Holmes never seemed to mind when the women who worked for him took off, leaving all their belongings in their rooms, and not bothering to call for them." (from a neighbor of Holmes)
I was surprised that the book filled as many as it did, but as I conintued to read, and in the end finished it, I couldn't imagine it taking any less.
I don't know if I would read it again, just based on it's subject. I would read more by this author, however. He is great.
So there you have it.

Read on.

H.