Review of By The Rivers of Babylon
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Terri Worthington
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Review of By The Rivers of Babylon
[Following is a volunteer review of "By The Rivers of Babylon" by Mary Glickman.]
Two pages in and I was already hooked. I was immediately captivated by the first character, Ella, before I left the first page. I was a little bit disappointed that she didn't end of being the main character, because she is so interesting. All of the characters are well written and with such depth that you feel you know them and why they do the things they do. All except Abigail, one of the main characters. I would have liked to have known more about her thoughts, in order to understand why she ended up doing what she did. I didn't find a lot in her thoughts or personality in the first half of the book that explained her new behavior/personality near the end of the book. Even so, I knew her enough to still enjoy the book. Joe, another of the main characters, started out like a stereotype, and I was prepared to be disappointed. But I wasn't! It was so interesting to see his character develop and grow. Billy, the protagonist of the story, was richly developed, liked and disliked, all at the same time. Everyone can identify someone in their lives like this character. I was fascinated by the insight of his behavior.
The best part of the book is how the author captures small town southern flavor instantly and continuously throughout the book. Her sentences, her characters, and her descriptions of places and things were dripping in all things southern. She used many colorful sayings, like "Strangers stood out at Declan’s like burrs on a wet dog." It was an easy read, flowing nicely, like a well told story should. I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next.
I found the editing of this book to be flawless. I didn't find any typos or bad grammar that was not intentional. One particular thing I noticed was that the story was told so well, without any run on sentences. So many times, books will have sentences that are a paragraph long. I have had to read those long sentences a couple of times to make sure I get the meaning correctly. But I never had a problem with that in this book. The sentences were concise yet descriptive and meaningful. I also noticed that there wasn't a lot of repetition, which I enjoyed. I sometimes feel that authors think the readers aren't smart enough to get the gist of the book, so they have to keep repeating the main points over and over again. I appreciated that this author realized her readers were intelligent.
The story lines in this book are age-old stories, yet not at all superficial or predictable. The fact that the characters' thoughts were shared with the reader made the book engrossing. I liked the book so much that I couldn't put it down. I read the entire book during Thanksgiving vacation. I would rate this book a 5 out of 5, for all the reasons mentioned above. I look forward to reading more books by this author.
******
By The Rivers of Babylon
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Two pages in and I was already hooked. I was immediately captivated by the first character, Ella, before I left the first page. I was a little bit disappointed that she didn't end of being the main character, because she is so interesting. All of the characters are well written and with such depth that you feel you know them and why they do the things they do. All except Abigail, one of the main characters. I would have liked to have known more about her thoughts, in order to understand why she ended up doing what she did. I didn't find a lot in her thoughts or personality in the first half of the book that explained her new behavior/personality near the end of the book. Even so, I knew her enough to still enjoy the book. Joe, another of the main characters, started out like a stereotype, and I was prepared to be disappointed. But I wasn't! It was so interesting to see his character develop and grow. Billy, the protagonist of the story, was richly developed, liked and disliked, all at the same time. Everyone can identify someone in their lives like this character. I was fascinated by the insight of his behavior.
The best part of the book is how the author captures small town southern flavor instantly and continuously throughout the book. Her sentences, her characters, and her descriptions of places and things were dripping in all things southern. She used many colorful sayings, like "Strangers stood out at Declan’s like burrs on a wet dog." It was an easy read, flowing nicely, like a well told story should. I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next.
I found the editing of this book to be flawless. I didn't find any typos or bad grammar that was not intentional. One particular thing I noticed was that the story was told so well, without any run on sentences. So many times, books will have sentences that are a paragraph long. I have had to read those long sentences a couple of times to make sure I get the meaning correctly. But I never had a problem with that in this book. The sentences were concise yet descriptive and meaningful. I also noticed that there wasn't a lot of repetition, which I enjoyed. I sometimes feel that authors think the readers aren't smart enough to get the gist of the book, so they have to keep repeating the main points over and over again. I appreciated that this author realized her readers were intelligent.
The story lines in this book are age-old stories, yet not at all superficial or predictable. The fact that the characters' thoughts were shared with the reader made the book engrossing. I liked the book so much that I couldn't put it down. I read the entire book during Thanksgiving vacation. I would rate this book a 5 out of 5, for all the reasons mentioned above. I look forward to reading more books by this author.
******
By The Rivers of Babylon
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Worldlines by Adam Guest
