I must do a quick review (blasting) of The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough. Yes the same Thornbirds that we all read about 20 years ago and was made into a hugely popular mini-series with Richard Chamberlain. I read this book years ago, and I liked it just fine. It wasn't one of my favorites, but I didn't hate it. I watched the mini-series and thought it was fine too. It was no Roots, but it was fine. So MB gave me the book to re-read, and I fully expected to like it again. If you look on my book list you'll see that in fact, I did NOT like it again. I've given it one star. I did toy with giving it two stars, but I just couldn't do it. I found the LOOOOOONG descriptions of the Australian outback boring. I like only two characters--Justine and Anne. Everyone else I wanted to grab by the shoulders and yell, "Get over yourselves!!!" Even the brothers needed a good, swift kick in the pants. I could go on and on and on about how annoying they all were, but I'll stop. It was 700 pages of mostly blah, though the last 100 pages or so almost redeemed it. Almost! It all does lead me to believe that in January, I might need to update my rating system. Maybe a 4 star system would be better. If I had a 4 star system, this book would have gotten 2 stars.
1 comment:
I agree - the descriptions of the land and working the land/cattle were too much. Maybe you had to be Catholic (or ex-Catholic) to see how far Cardinal de Bricassart strayed from his vows.
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