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"The Vintner's Luck" Elizabeth Knox

Why I read it: I had finished the last demon book, and I didn't have anything else out of the library. That meant I got to choose from the books lying around. Nothing had a deadline.


I had originally asked for this for Christmas. My younger sister got it for me, and as is a tradition in my family, she started reading it before giving it to me (you may remember, I read "the Fifth Child" by Doris Lessing under the same pretense). She didn't finish it. She said something like "Meh." Maybe it wasn't her thing.


What I liked: So much. It took me two days to read. The story has reallly stuck with me, and I think about it while I'm walking around. It starts in I think (memory) 1806, when Sobran first meets the angel Xas. Each chapter is a different year, and some of them are only one sentence long, but some of them are 20-30 pages. It goes until the end of Sobran's life, when he has learned a lot about his own particular guardian angel, who gives him advice starting at their first meeting. Some of that advice is better, some is worse, because Xas has left out some important details of his status.


What I hated: The ending was sad.


What I can steal: I wish I could write like this. The book reminded me, maybe illogically, of "The English Patient". I don't know if that would make sense to someone else. They take place in different places, in different times, with different types and sets of characters, but they seemed of a type. Maybe I could steal the one-year, one-chapter thing. The problem of stealing would be that I would know.

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