Book 51 of 52: Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence by David Samuel Levinson

I started Antonia Lively Breaks the Silenceby David Samuel Levinson before I flew from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. It was supossed to be my in-flight reading. But I ended the flight by playing word games on my phone while glancing at my fellow passenger’s in-seat TV, which was showing the end of the Eagles game. And I don’t like football.

It’s not that it’s a bad book, but it’s a sprawling, messy one – and not in a good way. There’s too many narrators, which make for too many story lines. The book starts in the middle of what happened to these characters, which can make for good tension in a book as what really happened unfolds, but that tension was buried under too many plots moving in too many directions. I kept seeing it as a movie. It would make a good one if someone clarified the story, and made those plot lines more clear while trimming back some of the ones that go nowhere. I almost DNFed the book, but I brought it with me to California, and was more than half way through, so I finally finished it this morning.

Good thing I did – one more book to go before this series was over, and I was anxious to move on. I already started book 52 of 52, and imagine it won’t be long until you see the review here. So stay tuned!