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Brooke's review

The Poe Shadow: A Novel
by Matthew Pearl

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9533.The_Poe_Shadow_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Poe Shadow: A Novel" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1166028018m/9533.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9533.The_Poe_Shadow_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Poe Shadow: A Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6247.Matthew_Pearl">Matthew Pearl</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3416164?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 2 of 5 stars Matthew Pearl's The Poe Shadow is the first book I've read in a while that I did not like at all. The premise is interesting; a contemporary of Edgar Allen Poe attempts to discover what happened in the final days before the poet's death. Pearl had written the moderately entertaining The Dante Club prior to this, and I had expected to see the improvement that often comes with an author's sophomore effort. Instead, Pearl only manages to serve up a snooze-fest.
 
 To begin with, Quentin Clark is the most unsympathetic and annoying protagonist I have ever encountered. He throws away his job and his fiance at the merest whisper of a conspiracy. He's obsessed with Poe beyond all rational thought. After abandoning his fiance for over a year and a half, he's stunned to discover she's been betrothed to someone else. He creates adversaries where there are none. By the time the book ended, I was more than ready to be done with him and never hear from him again.
 
 The other characters do not fare much better. Their motives are cloudy, at best. I could never quite understand why people were behaving as they were. Everyone was dramatic and over-the-top, and I couldn't identify anyone that I even liked.
 
 The mystery itself doesn't propel itself forward very well, and there's simply too much muddled stuff in between Poe's death and the final resolution of what happened to him. Although I appreciate the historical analysis, of which the author did much, it's not presented in an interesting way.
 
 If you're a diehard Poe fan, you might enjoy this take on the poet's life and death. Otherwise, I can't think of a reason I'd recommend this book to anyone.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/126262?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Brooke's review
rating:
bookshelves: 2007

Matthew Pearl's The Poe Shadow is the first book I've read in a while that I did not like at all. The premise is interesting; a contemporary of Edgar Allen Poe attempts to discover what happened in the final days before the poet's death. Pearl had written the moderately entertaining The Dante Club prior to this, and I had expected to see the improvement that often comes with an author's sophomore effort. Instead, Pearl only manages to serve up a snooze-fest.

To begin with, Quentin Clark is the most unsympathetic and annoying protagonist I have ever encountered. He throws away his job and his fiance at the merest whisper of a conspiracy. He's obsessed with Poe beyond all rational thought. After abandoning his fiance for over a year and a half, he's stunned to discover she's been betrothed to someone else. He creates adversaries where there are none. By the time the book ended, I was more than ready to be done with him and never hear from him again.

The other characters do not fare...more

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message 1: by Char

09/24/2007 02:05PM

sounds like I'm very glad that I put it back down yesterday when I was at Target - thanks for the review.