"What I thought would be a story about one man's slow descent into blindness and how he adapted, turned out to be more of a story about his life, the poor decisions he made, the relationships he ruined and the abject misery that he struggled with, the blindness was more of an aside. I appreciated Knipfel's sardonic wit but his stubbornness and pride left him in a lot of unfortunate situations. He was a frustrating person to read about." 2 Stars Pros: Knipfel's sardonic voice brings some levity to an otherwise tragic situation/I like that he was contrary from a young age, though at the same time, he made a lot of bad decisions that didn't help his situation any. Cons: This book turned out to be more of a timeline of how Knipfel's poor decisions impacted his life, while he slowly went blind. The blindness felt like more of an afterthought/Knipfel's struggles with major depression and alcoholism were profound but he didn't really seem to want to get
"The stranger in a strange land, forced to learn new customs and beliefs with a dash of forbidden romance thrown in is always a draw. And with a strong MMC in Blackthorne the story has promise but is very quickly and heavily weighed down by political intrigue and way too many characters. I think this will have translated well to the screen so I plan on checking out the TV Show." 3 Stars Pros: Rodrigues and Blackthorne's banter and friendship is tenuous but you want it to be genuine/Of course, the simmering romance between Blackthorne and Mariko was fun. Cons: There were a lot of characters and they all called each other by different names, it was extremely confusing. The only one I cared about was Blackthorne and those scenes were what kept me reading/The political plays and betrayals were all very complex and I was just lost in ancestral lineages and who was descended from one of the ancient Clans/The Jesuits and the Catholics and the Protestants, I couldn't keep