Where I Plowed Through It, at Least

Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could by Adam Schiff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like Adam Schiff and looked forward to reading this book. I asked for it for Christmas. And... it was very not awful. In fact, it was extremely okay. Desperately not bad.

In terms of laying out the facts and the timeline, this is an excellent resource. It's all here. Most of it you already know, and that's okay, but a few things are new.

In terms of reading, it's kind of a drag. I mean, obviously; it's about Donald Trump and the terrible crap he did. But it's not compelling, and I can't quite say why. Somehow, he made this riveting topic bland. Maybe it's his careful, precise, legal tone, which is so even throughout that it's like reading my way through a plateful of pudding. I'm not sure. I do know that I came close to DNFing the book several times.

IMO--he should have either written a book about the danger from Donald Trump and the GOP's corruption or make it a book about himself and the behind-the-scenes story of the first impeachment. It was an odd mix of the two and I didn't like it much.

Three stars for solid information.

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Not a lot of Musketeers in this sequel...

Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is part 2 of 4 in the 3rd book of 3....

I liked this book, as I find all Dumas books to be very breezy and entertaining, but this one was somewhat less fun than others. Although it's a Three Musketeers sequel, D'Artagnan and the others almost don't appear in the novel. Aramis's son Raoul, the Vicomte of Bragelonne, shows up a bit more, but really the story changes to follow the king and his courtiers, especially his brother (Monsieur), his English wife (madame), and some of the women who are their companions and maids of honor. There are intrigues regarding money and taxes and corruption in government, but most of the focus is on who the king is paying attention to.

That's fine. It's not a plot that really appeals to me, but because Dumas creates characters that the reader cares about and wants to see succeed (along with characters one wants to see thrown down) it is still entertaining and not too difficult to read.

I want to return more to Raoul and Porthos and the rest, including the Man in the Iron Mask, and suspect there will be more in part 3 of 4 in the 3rd book of the series... but it'll have to wait until I'm ready for more French court intrigue. For now, this book has to be enough.

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