Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair) reviewed Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, Bk 2) on + 461 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I was hoping for a lot more. It was boring, all the way through. Darn. I really liked Wolf Hall. I found the 'reviews' on the back of the cover almost hard to believe after reading it. It was too much inside just one head so to speak--making all the surrounding characters seem blah. Very blah.
Helpful Score: 2
I read a lot, but I just could not get into this one, I tried and tried and finally I gave up and ready to pass it on to someone who can get into it. I found the story to be boring and having to read parts over to understand what was going on.
To follow up a Man Booker prize with another one in a sequel is no small feat, but one that Hilary Mantel pulled off well with Bring up the bodies, the second work in a planned trilogy on the career of Thomas Cromwell. Readers re-join the story in late 1535, as Henry VIII is tiring of his second wife Anne Boleyn who has not delivered a son, and starts to eye Jane Seymour. Cromwell, by now a well-placed fixer of this Tudor court, maneuvers behind the scenes to engineer Annes removal. The action moves more quickly, but I feel equally in the thick of things from Cromwells perspective. I found this to be equally satisfying as Wolf Hall, and am looking forward to the next installment.