Pompeii by Robert Harris- 3 stars

[Mindy aka serenity]

This book details the eruption of Vesuvius over the city of Pompeii in Ancient Roman civilization, told through the point of view of the engineer of the local aqueduct. I enjoyed the description of the aqueduct's makeup as well as the snippets from a book on volcanoes at the beginning of every chapter. The rest of the book, however, was just meh. I couldn't really get interested in the lives of the characters because there wasn't too much development there. They just felt a bit hollow. The story dragged along the two days before the eruption and then spat out the action rather quickly, not even leaving the reader with a satisfying ending. This book was highly rated by others, but it did not thrill me.

[NancyJ]

Thanks for the warning. I have one of his other books on my long list, but I think I might just let is fall off the list now. My husband loves volcanoes (and disaster stories in general) so it might be I might consider it for him. He doesn't care about character development as much.