Review: Hungover after being drunk on story, world-building, and characters.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 29, 2014
I feel hungover. I read this book in one, self-indulgent sitting spread out over three days, and now I'm paying the price. I was drunk on the story and the characters, and I don't regret it. That doesn't mean I'm anxious to repeat the experience any time soon. It's been a long time since an author grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. I loved the first third watching the relationship between the h/h grow and develop. I suffered through the middle third, thinking that if the author didn't give a satisfactory ending to make up for the pain and grief, real grief, I was experiencing that I was going to be one unhappy reader. I've decided to let the author live.Usually when I have this much emotional involvement with a book, I long for a sequel. Not this one. I don't think I could stand it. The book is perfect in itself, and a sequel would be supererogatory.I see many things in this book that link to other stories. I see the hero as a blend of samurai/ninja/zen master Moses, John Wayne in The Quiet Man, and Tarzan. I'd be willing to take a bet that the author has studied Comanche practices or read Empire of the Summer Moon. Lots of parallels between what happens in the middle third and experiences of women and men taken by Comanches.I don't hand out 5-star reviews like candy. This is the first one where I didn't want to immediately want to turn back to the beginning to reread the book. I need some recovery time before I'm ready to take journey again, but I'm sure once is not going to be enough.