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FORMAT: Book
TITLE: I, Mona Lisa
AUTHOR: Jeanne Kalogridis
01. I really liked the beginning of this novel. Even though it wasn't told from the main character (Mona Lisa)'s point of view, it was really interesting to read into the thoughts of the Medici family. You actually felt bad when Giuliano was murdered. =/
02. Flashing forward to Mona Lisa's time... Yup, this stuff was also interesting. I liked how there was always a mystery behind the mother's actions, even though I felt like a total idiot for not realizing that she was the same Anna as the one Giuliano had wanted to marry. I don't even know why I didn't realize it until Kalogridis stated it explicitly.
03. I love the references she made to Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, two of the main characters from her book The Borgia Bride. It was so awesome how the two stories were connected together; I believe Savonarola was also mentioned in her first novel.
04. One thing I wasn't too crazy about was Mona Lisa's romance with Giuliano, Jr. It was kind of stupid. He basically saw her, randomly fell in love with her, and then she was all like, "Yay, I'm going to marry a noble guy I met three days ago! I love him more than anything!" Wtf? It was totally random. I never got the impression that their attraction was genuine. They had no chemistry at all and the whole thing was poorly done.
05. Yeah, thanks for putting news of Giuliano, Jr.'s death on the back cover. The entire time I was just waiting for him to die, and when he did I was just like, "Yay, now we can get on with the plot." (Not for anything, but Kalogridis seems to have a fondness for killing off her main character's loved ones.)
06. Why was there no development of a relationship between Mona Lisa and her son? Kalogridis basically ignored him until Mona Lisa's second husband, Francesco, needed him to blackmail her into doing so. It was kind of weird.
07. I like how the storyline with Leonardo Da Vinci panned out. Once it was revealed that he was her father (even though his explanation of why he had sex with her mother sucked), everything made complete and total sense--especially why he was so insistent on painting Mona Lisa. I didn't, however, like that Kalogridis kept changing who Mona Lisa's father was supposed to be. That got annoying after awhile.
08. The ending of this book sucked. It was wrapped up in about the last twenty pages, and lo and behold, Giuliano, Jr. is not really dead! Somehow, people lied to both of the star-crossed lovers and told them that the other had been killed. *facepalm* Yeah, right, that was so lame. And I hated how Kalogridis was trying to be all symbolical by having a second killing in the Duomo, and then proceeded to intersperse random ellipses and Latin preaching in the middle of the murder scene. Not to mention how she was reunited the Giuliano, and he barely said a word of dialogue before we were whisked off to the epilogue, where Mona Lisa is basically like, "Yeah, we're reunited now and we live out in the countryside, Florence is all back to normal, and my second husband is still pretending he's married to me... hee."
In other words, I think Kalogridis got really bored with the book, and rather than create an awesome ending to what had up until this point been an amazing story, she decided to take the cheap route out and do a huge info dump of revelations on us. Oh, look, Leonardo is really her father! Hey, guess what--Giuliano's really alive! Btw, let's kill her maid! Whoops, I guess her dad was the first person to kill Giuliano, Sr... and even though this has been a mystery since the beginning of the book, no one cares anymore! Gah.
09. I probably would have given this book four stars, maybe five if the ending had been kick-ass enough, but as it was the ending SUCKED and I'm really pissed off, because I was enjoying the book right up until the last twenty pages! *annoyance*
TITLE: I, Mona Lisa
AUTHOR: Jeanne Kalogridis
01. I really liked the beginning of this novel. Even though it wasn't told from the main character (Mona Lisa)'s point of view, it was really interesting to read into the thoughts of the Medici family. You actually felt bad when Giuliano was murdered. =/
02. Flashing forward to Mona Lisa's time... Yup, this stuff was also interesting. I liked how there was always a mystery behind the mother's actions, even though I felt like a total idiot for not realizing that she was the same Anna as the one Giuliano had wanted to marry. I don't even know why I didn't realize it until Kalogridis stated it explicitly.
03. I love the references she made to Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, two of the main characters from her book The Borgia Bride. It was so awesome how the two stories were connected together; I believe Savonarola was also mentioned in her first novel.
04. One thing I wasn't too crazy about was Mona Lisa's romance with Giuliano, Jr. It was kind of stupid. He basically saw her, randomly fell in love with her, and then she was all like, "Yay, I'm going to marry a noble guy I met three days ago! I love him more than anything!" Wtf? It was totally random. I never got the impression that their attraction was genuine. They had no chemistry at all and the whole thing was poorly done.
05. Yeah, thanks for putting news of Giuliano, Jr.'s death on the back cover. The entire time I was just waiting for him to die, and when he did I was just like, "Yay, now we can get on with the plot." (Not for anything, but Kalogridis seems to have a fondness for killing off her main character's loved ones.)
06. Why was there no development of a relationship between Mona Lisa and her son? Kalogridis basically ignored him until Mona Lisa's second husband, Francesco, needed him to blackmail her into doing so. It was kind of weird.
07. I like how the storyline with Leonardo Da Vinci panned out. Once it was revealed that he was her father (even though his explanation of why he had sex with her mother sucked), everything made complete and total sense--especially why he was so insistent on painting Mona Lisa. I didn't, however, like that Kalogridis kept changing who Mona Lisa's father was supposed to be. That got annoying after awhile.
08. The ending of this book sucked. It was wrapped up in about the last twenty pages, and lo and behold, Giuliano, Jr. is not really dead! Somehow, people lied to both of the star-crossed lovers and told them that the other had been killed. *facepalm* Yeah, right, that was so lame. And I hated how Kalogridis was trying to be all symbolical by having a second killing in the Duomo, and then proceeded to intersperse random ellipses and Latin preaching in the middle of the murder scene. Not to mention how she was reunited the Giuliano, and he barely said a word of dialogue before we were whisked off to the epilogue, where Mona Lisa is basically like, "Yeah, we're reunited now and we live out in the countryside, Florence is all back to normal, and my second husband is still pretending he's married to me... hee."
In other words, I think Kalogridis got really bored with the book, and rather than create an awesome ending to what had up until this point been an amazing story, she decided to take the cheap route out and do a huge info dump of revelations on us. Oh, look, Leonardo is really her father! Hey, guess what--Giuliano's really alive! Btw, let's kill her maid! Whoops, I guess her dad was the first person to kill Giuliano, Sr... and even though this has been a mystery since the beginning of the book, no one cares anymore! Gah.
09. I probably would have given this book four stars, maybe five if the ending had been kick-ass enough, but as it was the ending SUCKED and I'm really pissed off, because I was enjoying the book right up until the last twenty pages! *annoyance*
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