Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I like it when people recommend books for me to read. Quite a lot of people have recommended "The Bronze Horseman" for me, and because I like big, epic stories a while ago I put it in my stack and a few days ago I tried to read it. Notice the word tried. This is a book that could have been great. The premis is great-love triangle between two sisters and a soldier during the siege of St. Petersburg (then known as Leningrad) with secrets on the soldier, is nearly classic. Tatiana and her older sister Dasha live together with their parents and grandparents, and Tatiana's twin brother in two bedrooms and Tatiana had just turned 17 when she and Alexander meet in a romance filled haze. War against Germany was announced only a few hours before and Tatiana is supposed to be buying food for her family-but it's nearly impossible to find. Alexander helps her buy food at the army supply store and he and his creepy friend Dimitri carry them home for her. But it turns out that Dasha already knew Alexander and thinks she's in love with him. Tatiana, not wanting to hurt her sister, refuses to stand up for her relationship with Alexander, which continues to advance in secret through the siege. The rest of the novel is hardship and terrible times-people surviving on no food with no heat and bombs bursting overhead all the time. The author manages to capture the desperation and the terrible, tired acceptance of the war conditions in the city very well. But her writing style is so annoying! I have never, ever, read a book that had as much day to day detail as this one did. You could almost pull out a calendar and write down what the family ate for each meal, each day, for months. I never knew so much about Russian food before-anfd I'm half Russian! The same thing happens with Tatiana's thoughts, and very occasionally, at completely random intervals, Alexander's. And the way they focus on their relationship-during a WAR-is almost crazily self centered. Dimitri comes off as more a menace than the Germans, more than hunger even! I really wanted to like this book-I already had the two sequels lined up and everything but it got to the point where I just could not go on reading of Tatiana and Alexander obsessing and fighting and making up and cooking cabbage pie and blueberry ice cream and marinating mushrooms and drink vodka....This author doesn't know how to skim over anything. It was tiring, exhausting to read. Still some part of me wants to get the book back out and see if we can make it work. It did have an appeal, even if it was an exhausting one. I know almost everyone who starts this book loves it so no doubt I will get hate mail and un-helpful votes for daring to say a bad thing about it and I do almost feel I should apologize for my feelings about it but I must tell the truth. Two stars. I really didn't like this. (There, I said it.)