I am mixed on this one. There were passages, sentences, paragraphs that were breathtakingly beautiful. The novel had an arc. I could see what the author wanted to do, and sometimes I believed that she had almost achieved it.But in the end, it didn't quite gel. The pieces didn't hold together. As others have noted, the main character, Max is nowhere near as interesting as many of the other characters in the book. Is lack of understanding is grating. Grating because this isn't one of those books that plays with the untruthful narrator. Then there is the handling of the holocaust. The setup was great, the middle part dragged, and the ending held. In truth, this book felt like it wanted to be a much larger, sweeping book, but it wasn't. So it had too many ingredients for a slim book. I would be interested to see what else this author wrote as she has much potential. This was an interesting topic--Set in France just before, during and after World War II, the plot follows Max Berenzon as he attempts to recover his family's lost art work, which was looted by the Nazis.unfortunately, -the plot never developed enough to grab the reader. it could have been compelling, it could have been a great read and it could have been a wonderful love story...but it was not.
Do You like book Il Mercante Dei Quadri Perduti (2009)?
I didn't get very far in reading this book. It was very tedious and cliche.
—baoBookEz
An interesting book about stolen art during the Nazi regime.
—Grace
