A Discovery of Witches - worth persevering?

[mrsminiverscharlady]

Got this book on the recommendation of a friend, but 100 pages in it seems to be poorly written shite. Does it improve or should I quit while I'm ahead?!

Probably quit if you've made it that far and don't like it. It carries on pretty much in the same style. It's not particularly well written, however I personally quite enjoyed it and bought the sequel. My days of concentrating on worthy intelligent fiction are over probably until DCs are a bit less exhausting!

I enjoyed it, it is not great literature but I didn't think it was shite writing either. But you are about 1/4 of the way through and as titan says it carries on in a similar fashion.

I gave up 1/4 of the way through. I couldn't read another sentence about wine. It bored me to tears.

I enjoyed it but was engaged before I got that far. I would give up life is too short to read things you are not enjoying

Oh I love love love this book and the next one, can't wait for the third!

Well I'm giving it another 'proper' go and am hanging in there...

I like the idea of the story (particularly the next book) so I do want to enjoy it, just struggling with the prose. 'He watched as she opened her bathroom window. That will save me having to break in, he thought' was a particular low point IMO

I really enjoyed this one, am finding the second one harder going but enjoying the Elizabethan period detail - Deborah Harkness really does her research. IMO she is very good on background detail and really not that good at people and dialogue, she does also take time to get going. I'd hang in there, it gets better.

I had to ditch it. I thought it was terrible cliched and derivative and the writing was mediocre.