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Will re-read this after I've completed my re-read of The Shadow of the Wind

I'll restart this when I've re-read the previous two books.

A rare re-read, I'm doing both of the Ruiz Zafron books that precede The Prisoner of Heaven. I loved it the first time I read it, and I remember why: that first chapter of the book is fucking everything.

@franksting We did not read the same book. This book made me almost violently angry with frustration. I didn't bother to count, but any more than zero chapters that are simple word-for-word reiterations of the previous chapter is too many. And from the midpoint through to the final two chapters, with two small exceptions, that what the future timeline was. It was terrible. I want my money back. And I have zero intent to read the final book in this cycle. Only barely liked The Peripheral. This was, to me, absolute trash.

I want it on record that I'd give this book zero stars but that doesn't count as a rating. So, 1-star without that possibility. I hated this book so much I fully intend to go next to the Gibson subreddit and trash it there, too. It's not that it was bad, it was so bad, it angered me at the halfway point. With only 50 pages left, I wondered if I should even bother finishing it. DO NOT read this book. It's just drek. I don't care about how he had to change it or fix to accommodate modern goings-on. It's trash. Should be thrown out and excluded from the Gibson ouvre. Ugh.

If I didn't have only 30-odd pages left, I'd throw this book in the garbage. This book is quite simply terrible. Folks around me keep saying maybe the ending will make it pay off, but that's just not possible. From the midpoint on, it's been a tell don't show story for at least half the time. The conceit of the book is kinda cool, but the execution is abysmal. I truly hate this book. The only thing that will pay it off is if the series actually ends at the end of this cycle. It's truly the worst book I've read by an author who gets paid. Period. (Read worse by shitty erotica dreck authors, but not by a stand-out like Gibson.)

The book takes place in the late ‘70s, and I enjoyed the book a bunch. But, the author used a handful of phrases throughout the book — usually in the narration, so not that big a deal — that don’t fit the time period. “coming in hot” was a phrase I recall thinking… that didn’t exist then. Anyway, a good book. An enjoyable read.

this was a fun read. I’m not usually a mob novel person, but this really held my interest and eye

Christmas gift from my older boy. Because I'm trying to write a thing. and because the author is from our neck of the woods. The kid's way of saying he doesn't hate me, I think. Which is nice.

I have but a single complaint about a mostly relaxing story about a woman's coping with her alcoholism and recovery, though painful imprisonment and then... further imprisonment but of a different kind-- why no quotes? I'd like to say I got over it, but really, it made reading dialogue a few beats more difficult, and that's a bad choice, I think. Otherwise... a nice story of hope after beginning... without.

There were two very trying things about this book: 1. The writing is so good, it made me feel shame for wanting to be a writer. It wasn't inspiring to sit and read Morrison and thing to myself, "I can never do this,": it was dispiriting. 2. The story is so dread-filled, and in 21st century America we've become so nearly enlightened (well, some of us have, highlighted by the fact that the unenlightenable have become so toxic and near-violent) that it filled me with remnants of shame for the sins of whitepeople, and I don't always want or need to feel that. So, it took much longer to read the book than it ought to have.