Negative Positive
Title: good idea, sloppy writing
Review: I loved the idea of The Lady and the Unicorn--the time period, the changing points of view, a fiction inspired by a real work of art--and I have enjoyed previous novels by Tracy Chevalier.But Chevalier's writing is getting pretty sloppy. She overwrites and tells the reader what she means instead of showing the reader. For example, she feels the need to tell the reader reapeatedly and explicitly how obsessed the daughter of the nobleman is with the painter, when she could have shown it with the actions of the characters to much better and more subtle effect. It is as if she does not trust her reader to figure it out.Her writing in this novel has also begun to verge on soft porn--meant to excite but not really exciting, perhaps just a ploy to reel in readers. The almost soft porn might be okay, except that it is not believable--I do not believe that some of these characters in these times would do such things so quickly and easily, without a second thought.
Is the review positive or negative? 