Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Goodreads Book Review - Unholy Night

Unholy NightUnholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I went into this book shortly after watching the horrendously bad movie version of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," so I wasn't expecting very much from something that had anything to do with Seth Grahame-Smith. For the first 100 pages or so, this book was exactly what I feared it would be: completely unengaging, boring nonsense. But then, business picked up. The main character, Balthazar, finally became compelling as the story really started weaving around the Nativity legend we all know. Historical fiction like this one is always tough, but by the end, Grahame-Smith had me hooked by the non-stop pace he eventually settles into and the way he ties everything together. To show you what I mean about the eventual pace he sets, it took me about two and a half weeks to force myself through the first hundred pages or so... and then three days to devour the rest because it was just nonstop and I couldn't put it down. If not for the beginning, this could have been a four-star book but I had to demote it. Still, I'd recommend it.



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That's the sixth book in the Recommended Reading Challenge to bite the dust. We're right around the three-month mark of this year-long experiment, so we're about 25% complete. I've still got three books on my list and I'm hopefully getting another two on Thursday, but I'm definitely looking for more to get me through the next nine months, so leave me some suggestions below! Especially if it's a book you can lend me so I don't have to spend money on something I might not like, but if you can't, recommend it anyway, I have my ways... and remember, there's going to be a prize at the end of the challenge for the person who recommended the book I enjoyed the most!

2 comments:

  1. I am glad you said what you did about the pacing in the beginning. It took me a week to get through the first section, until we got to the backstory and the action. Then I devoured this book in about 2 nights. He is a good storyteller and his books are getting progressively better. Happy that you enjoyed it!

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  2. Yeah, pacing was a problem. Once the "wise men" got to the manger and the slaughtering started though, it got pretty engrossing.

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