The Tempest

Rating:
Summary: flavorful, evocative thriller
Review: An evocative depiction of decaying Venice. One of the best book I read about my favorite city, written in luminous prose.

Rating:
Summary: This book was awful!
Review: I picked this up at the airport on my way to Denver thinking it would be an interesting read about my favorite city in the world but it was probably one of the worst books I have ever read!

Incredibly repetitive, very mysoginistic (sp?) and a clumsy read in both English and Spanish. I thought maybe this was a bad translation but I read part of the original and it was actually worse.

It got to the point where I was expecting to read the same paragraph about "Venice sinking into the sea and becoming a graveyard for ghosts" or some inane comment about a woman's meaty thighs rubbing together under a too tight skirt or the protagonist violating his celibacy as they seemed to appear at least once in each chapter.

If you're looking for a book set in Venice, skip this one and read Acqua Alta (I don't remember the author) which was wonderful and much better written.

I would have given this no stars but it wasn't an option and I feel that 1 star was being very kind.