Negative Positive
Title: More fiction than fact
Review: I barely made it 50 pages into this book. I found the topic fascinating, and have eagerly devoured other books which covered similar material, but this book is just insufferable. The author spends more time spooling out what MIGHT have happened than what DID happen, stringing together her flimsy imaginings of the courtesans' thoughts and motivations. Honestly, it reads more like real-person fan fiction than anything else. Not to mention, the prose is extremely pretentious and artificially flowery. Or, as the author herself might say, "one might conclude, from the reading of this catalogue, that the words upon the page more closely resembled a vivid purple bruise than anything approaching an enjoyable book."
Is the review positive or negative? 