Campbell Andrews’s Reviews > The City of Mirrors > Status Update

these personal heavens Cronin assigns to his characters are so wonderful, why should anybody bother living?

"Everything is forgiven, my darling, my love. All is forgiven, nothing is lost. Everything you have loved will come back to you. That is why you have come."

And in this single paragraph Cronin tips his hand and reveals himself as a sentimentalist, and lacking the cojones to deal with his characters as they deserve.

Moral Theraputic Deism.

Fanning is the Prince Humperdinck of this saga.

finally manages to admit Fanning is pathetic, but after 100+ pages of flat, maudlin first-person narration from him, it's much too late.

Lord helps us, Fanning is such a bore.

...and he chooses the most boring character as the only first-person narrator. wow, what a crippling misstep. I cannot imagine how he came to think any of this- Fanning's story, Fanning's voice -was a good idea.

a major, major miscalculation to insist Fanning's history is sympathetic or particularly notable- and here we are, putting it in the mouths of characters to remind the reader that we should 'understand' this self-obsessed dolt.

Well, I don't. Cronin's Big Boss, the final villain, may be diabolical but he's also damned boring.

"I actually feel sorry for the guy"

Well, I don't. Cronin's Big Boss, the final villain, may be diabolical but he's also damned boring.

Zero's grief is supposed to be so great, but his story is pretty average. Like, my brother-in-law has had it a lot worse and a lot more unfair, and more sympathetic. Can't figure out why Cronin saddled his story this way... the other option would be making Fanning a pathetic, ridiculous figure whose petty grievances are rendered monstrous by the virus. But Cronin couldn't see fit to do that either.