litlover12

I finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell! Below is my review (cross-posted from Goodreads):

This book is a brilliant achievement. Clarke has been compared to both Austen and Dickens; personally, I would say she's closer to Austen, with her wit and irony and her whole style in general. Plot, structure, setting, tone, foreshadowing, are all incredibly good, and there are a couple of real jump-out-of-your-chair moments!

The one weak spot is characterization. Clarke couldn't quite make most of her characters come alive, in my opinion. The only characters I really cared about from start to finish were the fairy's victims. Mr. Norrell was pretty hard to take, and I didn't feel anything at all, good or bad, for Jonathan Strange until about 700 pages in! I wasn't a big fan of the pacing either, although I can't really call it bad -- the author was creating a very complex world and needed things to play out gradually. Still, sometimes it felt draggy, and I kept wondering when someone was FINALLY going to get a clue and do something about that wretched fairy.

But anyway, I've been meaning to read this book for years, and I'm glad I finally did. Weaknesses aside, it was a worthwhile experience.