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Title: A promising beginning, but ultimately a painful read
Review: I'm frankly a little surprised to see so many positive reviews of this book. I was intrigued by the story at the beginning, but as it unfolded, the characters seemed more and more wooden and the dialogue became laughable. If I had to hear Mrs. Weber call her daughters "my little fleas" one more time, I vowed to stop reading. I finally ended up skimming the last 50 pages to end my misery, as I really didn't care what happened to the shallow characters. I think Stephanie Cowell has the potential to be a good descriptive writer, but somehow this story fell painfully flat. Kudos to her for the underlying idea, which was a creative approach to telling the tale of Mozart. I would not, however, recommend this book to those who desire a more lyrical--and believable--read.
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