Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Review

I finally finished this book a week or so ago. When I saw it in the bookstore and read some of the hype surrounding it, I'll admit I was excited to read it. So, I dove into the beefy novel, reading a chapter or so each night. It was tough read because it's written in the style of literature from the late 1800s and you end up reading and re-reading certain paragraphs to make sure you understand what's going on. Also, this book makes liberal use of footnotes and sometimes the footnote "stories" can be pages long. In the beginning of the book I found this to be a novelty and eagerly read each footnote assuming they were somehow important. Towards the end, I all but skimmed the footnotes or skipped them entirely because they usually weren't interesting. But I really wanted to like this book so I kept reading. Chapter after ponderous chapter I read - still hoping it would get more exciting - but that hope was left unfulfilled.

Overall, the story/plot was not that gripping because it took so long to get to the part where there was an actual problem that needed solving and I found the end to be a bit anticlimactic, so I felt kind of cheated.